Atlanta or Chicago?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on year-round weather with your weighting.
Wins on beaches & swimming and sights concentration 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 Atlanta if you want mild shoulder seasons and a winter that stays workable, with highs of 12-32°C across the year, and if a short list of sights suits you better than a long one.
Choose Chicago if you want lake beaches, a dense walkable centre, a far wider choice of restaurants and more to do with children, and can travel between June and September.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Chicago leads by 53 points.53
| Atlanta | Chicago | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 53 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 1 |
| Beaches 10 km | 0 | 12 |
| Coast distance | 373 km | 10,000 km |
| Water distance | — | 1 km |
Places to eat. Chicago leads by 22 points.22
| Atlanta | Chicago | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 59 | 81 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 739 | 2,147 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 23 | 37 |
Museums & heritage. Chicago leads by 11 points.11
| Atlanta | Chicago | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 35 | 46 |
| Museums within 10 km | 41 | 45 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 16 | 20 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 39 | 44 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 0 | 1 |
Nightlife. Chicago leads by 13 points.13
| Atlanta | Chicago | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 49 | 62 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 531 | 1,123 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 284 | 728 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 53 | 65 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 46 | 51 |
Nature & day trips. Chicago leads by 7 points.7
| Atlanta | Chicago | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 31 | 38 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 1 | 6 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 113 hectares | 118 hectares |
Good for families. Chicago leads by 23 points.23
| Atlanta | Chicago | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 32 | 55 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 2 | 18 |
| Park area within 2 km | 113 hectares | 118 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 1 | 2 |
Sights concentration. Chicago leads by 30 points.30
| Atlanta | Chicago | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 40 | 70 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 39 | 217 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Atlanta and Chicago are level on 43.
| Atlanta | Chicago | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 43 | 43 |
| Price level global | 100 | 100 |
| Daily budget | — | — |
Year-round weather. Atlanta leads by 10 points.10
| Atlanta | Chicago | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 67 | 57 |
| Monthly daytime high | 12 °C to 32 °C | 0.2 °C to 29.4 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 80 mm to 121 mm | 54 mm to 121 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 0 |
Where they differ
Chicago has 12 beaches nearby and one month of lake swimming, the water reaching 23°C in August; Atlanta has none. It also holds many more notable places within walking distance of the centre, about three times as many restaurants near the centre and a wider spread of kitchens, and more to occupy families, including 2 theme parks against Atlanta's 1.
Atlanta's edge is the calendar: daytime highs of 12-32°C across the year against Chicago's 0-29°C, so the shoulder months stay usable.
Where they are alike
Neither is a base for wild country. Park space near the centre is similar in both, and the land around each is largely unprotected, 1% around Atlanta and 6% around Chicago.
On museums and going out they are closer than their sizes suggest: a comparable number of museums each, and about as many nightclubs, though Chicago has 1 UNESCO-listed place within day-trip reach. Rain is steady in both, with no month at 40mm or less.
Which traveller are you?
Families are better served in Chicago: many more attractions near the centre, 2 theme parks against Atlanta's 1, and 12 beaches for summer swimming. Park space near the centre is much the same in either.
Anyone travelling to eat and drink should also choose Chicago: about three times as many restaurants near the centre, a much wider range of kitchens, and more places to drink, most of them close enough to reach on foot.
Atlanta suits the traveller going outside high summer. Highs of 12-32°C across the year keep spring, autumn and even winter workable, and the two hold a comparable number of museums, so little is given up.
What the numbers don't tell you
Both carry the same value rating, but that is a national price level applied to each, not a comparison between them. The dataset holds no daily budget figure for either city, so no cost comparison is possible here; read the value line as blank rather than as a tie.
Sunshine is not recorded near either city, so the monthly ratings rest on temperature, rainfall and sea temperature alone; that side of the weather is unmeasured rather than poor. Chicago's beach advantage is seasonal: just 1 month has water at 21°C or more, and neither city has a month at 40mm of rain or less.
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. Atlanta: 1991-2020 normals, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta (29.2 km from centre). Chicago: 1991-2020 normals, Chicago Midway Airport (14.5 km from centre).
Atlanta's best windows are April-May, at 23-27°C with 90-99mm of rain, and September-October, when it is drier at 80-97mm. Winter is cool rather than harsh, with January highs near 12°C, though the rain never lets up.
Chicago is a summer proposition: June to September brings 25-29°C and the lake warm enough to swim in by late summer, at 23°C. Spring is its wettest stretch, and winter highs of 0°C rule those months out for anything but indoor plans.
Getting there
| Flying from | Atlanta | Chicago |
|---|---|---|
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 2 h 5 m €152-200 ATL · 14 km | 2 h 5 m €201-231 ORD · 25 km |
| WashingtonIAD, DCA | 1 h 40 m €84-125 ATL · 14 km | 1 h 45 m €109-226 ORD · 25 km |
| HoustonIAH, HOU | 2 h 0 m no fares ATL · 14 km | 2 h 25 m €124-260 1 stop ORD · 25 km |
| MinneapolisMSP, STP | 2 h 25 m no fares ATL · 14 km | 1 h 20 m no fares ORD · 25 km |
| Los AngelesLAX, BUR, SNA, VNY | 4 h 20 m €165-240 1 stop ATL · 14 km | 4 h 0 m €195-265 1 stop ORD · 25 km |
| DallasDFW, DAL, AFW | 2 h 5 m €69-120 ATL · 14 km | 2 h 10 m €187-223 ORD · 25 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 9 h 0 m no fares ATL · 14 km | 8 h 30 m no fares ORD · 25 km |
| Mexico CityMEX, NLU, TLC | 3 h 10 m no fares ATL · 14 km | 3 h 50 m €253 ORD · 25 km |
| TokyoHND, NRT | 13 h 40 m no fares ATL · 14 km | 12 h 35 m no fares ORD · 25 km |
| Abu DhabiAUH | 15 h 5 m no fares ATL · 14 km | 14 h 25 m no fares ORD · 25 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 2026-09 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 | Atlanta | Chicago |
|---|---|---|
| Currency | US Dollar (USD) | US Dollar (USD) |
| Sockets | AB120 V, 60 Hz | AB120 V, 60 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer | UTC-6, UTC-5 in summer |
| Emergency number | 911 | 911 |
| Elevation | 225 m | 179 m |
| Main airport | Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL)14 km from centre238 non-stop destinations | Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)25 km from centre272 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 12 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Atlanta | Chicago |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 498,715 | 2,746,388 |
| People per km² | 1,433 | 4,529 |
| Museums within 10 km | 27 | 43 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 0 | 1 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 56 | 87 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | – | 1 month |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Atlanta or Chicago somewhere new.