Antwerp or Paris?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Has no clear advantage with the weighting you have chosen.
Wins on sights concentration and nightlife with your weighting.
What matters to you?
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.
The verdict
Choose Paris if you want the greatest density of things to see on foot, many times as many places to eat and drink near the centre, and more laid on for children.
Choose Antwerp if you prefer a smaller city where the museums and the night out sit tightly around the centre, and 9 UNESCO-listed places lie within day-trip reach.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Antwerp and Paris are level on 0.
| Antwerp | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 1 | 2 |
| Coast distance | 21 km | 149 km |
| Water distance | — | — |
Places to eat. Paris leads by 15 points.15
| Antwerp | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 75 | 90 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 1,164 | 4,732 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 42 | 33 |
Museums & heritage. Paris leads by 7 points.7
| Antwerp | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 69 | 76 |
| Museums within 10 km | 41 | 185 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 27 | 65 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 66 | 35 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 9 | 4 |
Nightlife. Paris leads by 29 points.29
| Antwerp | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 59 | 88 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 866 | 3,796 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 657 | 1,694 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 76 | 45 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 73 | 201 |
Nature & day trips. Paris leads by 14 points.14
| Antwerp | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 34 | 48 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 7 | 28 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 26 |
| Land share of disc % | 80 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 53 hectares | 82 hectares |
Good for families. Paris leads by 29 points.29
| Antwerp | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 46 | 75 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 14 | 89 |
| Park area within 2 km | 53 hectares | 82 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 3 | 3 |
Sights concentration. Paris leads by 40 points.40
| Antwerp | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 54 | 94 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 88 | 865 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Paris leads by 2 points.2
| Antwerp | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 60 | 62 |
| Price level global | 76.2 | 73.7 |
| Daily budget | €180 | €160 |
Year-round weather. Paris leads by 8 points.8
| Antwerp | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 58 | 66 |
| Monthly daytime high | 6.5 °C to 23.2 °C | 7.8 °C to 26 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 47 mm to 90 mm | 38 mm to 75 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 1 |
Where they differ
Antwerp is the compact option: most of its bars and clubs sit near the centre, where in Paris about half do, and its museums cluster tightly too. It also has 9 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Paris's 4, and a slightly wider range of kitchens.
Paris has many times more notable places within walking distance of the centre, about three times as many nightclubs, and far more attractions aimed at families, with about twice as much park space near the centre. Both have 3 theme parks within reach.
Where they are alike
Neither is a swimming destination: Paris has 2 beaches nearby and Antwerp 1, and neither has a month of sea at 21°C or more.
Both lean heavily on heritage, Paris with far more museums, Antwerp with tighter grouping and more UNESCO-listed places in day-trip reach. The national budget estimates behind them, €180 for Belgium and €160 for France, sit close together, and both cities follow much the same seasonal rhythm.
Which traveller are you?
Travelling with children: Paris. Many times more attractions near the centre and about twice as much park space, and both cities have 3 theme parks within reach, so the difference is what fills the days between.
Out late and eating out: Antwerp if you want the evening within walking distance, since most of its bars and clubs are central; Paris if you want sheer choice, with about three times as many clubs.
Museums and days out: Antwerp for tightly grouped museums and 9 UNESCO-listed places in day-trip reach; Paris if you want green country around the city, with 28% of the surrounding land protected against 7%.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €180 for Belgium and €160 for France, are national price levels for restaurants and hotels, not measurements of either city. A capital or a heavily visited city can sit far from its own country's average, by more than the gap between the two figures, so this tells you nothing about which trip costs more.
No weather station near Paris records sunshine hours, so that side of the weather comparison is simply unmeasured there. And a warm month is not a dry one: Antwerp's two warmest months are also its wettest, at 80-90mm.
When should you go?
The figures behind each month. Each row is shaded against that destination's own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that measure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.
Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Antwerp: 1991-2020 normals, Antwerpen / Deurne (5.2 km from centre). Paris: 1991-2020 normals, Paris-Montsouris (4.6 km from centre).
Antwerp peaks in July and August at 23°C, but those are also its wettest months, at 80-90mm. May and June are drier and calmer at 19-21°C, and April is its driest month at 47mm.
Paris holds warmth longer, 24-26°C from June to August and still 22°C in September, with summer rain of 51-58mm. Its driest stretch comes in late winter, February and March at 38-41mm, while May is its wettest month at 75mm.
Getting there
| Flying from | Antwerp | Paris |
|---|---|---|
| MadridMAD | 2 h 15 m €98-170 BRU · 36 km | 1 h 55 m €107-141 ORY · 14 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 7 h 35 m no fares BRU · 36 km | 7 h 30 m €579-648 1 stop CDG · 22 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 55 m €47-116 BRU · 36 km | 1 h 40 m €110-135 CDG · 22 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 5 m €98-165 1 stop BRU · 36 km | 1 h 5 m €63-103 CDG · 22 km |
| MilanMXP, BGY, LIN | 1 h 25 m €36-101 BRU · 36 km | 1 h 20 m €61-89 CDG · 22 km |
| LisbonLIS | 2 h 40 m €120-263 BRU · 36 km | 2 h 20 m €138-242 ORY · 14 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 2 h 5 m €87-136 1 stop BRU · 36 km | 1 h 55 m €118-132 ORY · 14 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 3 h 10 m €161-193 BRU · 36 km | 3 h 15 m €152-378 1 stop CDG · 22 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 6 h 45 m no fares BRU · 36 km | 6 h 50 m €292-389 1 stop CDG · 22 km |
| TokyoHND, NRT | 11 h 40 m no fares AMS · 123 km | 12 h 5 m €705-999 1 stop CDG · 22 km |
The busiest departure cities for these two, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop to both. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Where both columns name the same airport it is one flight, and the difference between the two is the distance printed beside it. Typical return fares for 2026-08 to 2026-10, cached market data up to 7 days old. The figure is the middle half of the offers found, so a single price means they agreed and a range means they did not; for a typical route that middle half spans about a quarter of the median, and for the least settled routes rather more than the median itself.
Before you go
| Measure | Antwerp | Paris |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | French, German, Dutch | French |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CE230 V, 50 Hz | CE230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 | 112 |
| Elevation | 7 m | 27 m |
| Main airport | Brussels Airport (BRU)36 km from centre191 non-stop destinations | Charles de Gaulle International Airport (CDG)22 km from centre277 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 14 days | 11 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Antwerp | Paris |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 529,247 | 2,103,778 |
| People per km² | 2,542 | 19,960 |
| Museums within 10 km | 38 | 251 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 9 | 4 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 80 | 169 |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Antwerp or Paris somewhere new.