VacationSelector
The Flame Towers from the seafront, Baku
BakuThe Flame Towers from the seafront
The Scott Monument and Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh
EdinburghThe Scott Monument and Princes Street Gardens

Photos: Baku by Zulfugar Karimov, Pexels License; Edinburgh by Carlos Delgado, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Baku or Edinburgh?

Our verdict in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities, and the climate month by month, so you can choose for your trip.

Choose Baku for

  • prices
  • beaches
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Baku’s own page.

Choose Edinburgh for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • day trips
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Edinburgh’s own page.

Scoreboard

Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.

Beaches & swimming. Baku 40, Edinburgh 22: Baku leads by 18 points.
Food & drink. Baku 60, Edinburgh 53: Baku leads by 7 points.
Culture & sights. Baku 62, Edinburgh 75: Edinburgh leads by 13 points.
Nightlife. Baku 42, Edinburgh 50: Edinburgh leads by 8 points.
Nature & outdoors. Baku 30, Edinburgh 75: Edinburgh leads by 45 points.
Day trips. Baku 45, Edinburgh 75: Edinburgh leads by 30 points.
Good for families. Baku 45, Edinburgh 62: Edinburgh leads by 17 points.
Getting around. Baku 58, Edinburgh 74: Edinburgh leads by 16 points.
Shopping & style. Baku 48, Edinburgh 50: Edinburgh leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Baku 64, Edinburgh 30: Baku leads by 34 points.
Live music & performing arts. Baku 52, Edinburgh 72: Edinburgh leads by 20 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Baku 30, Edinburgh 34: Edinburgh leads by 4 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Baku and Edinburgh.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Baku
48match

Wins on prices and beaches with your weighting.

Edinburgh
Best match
56match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and day trips with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Baku in July

30 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
5 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
25 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Edinburgh in July

19 °Cdaytime high
11 °Cnight-time low
66 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
14 °Csea
17 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080JFMAMJJASOND
BakuEdinburgh

Where the figures come from

Edinburgh has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Edinburgh's sunshine is measured 52 km from the centre, at Leuchars.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Baku: 1991-2020 normals, Mashtaga (23.2 km from centre). Edinburgh: 1991-2020 normals, Edinburgh Airport (10 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBakuEdinburgh
Official languageAzerbaijani, Azerbaijani Sign LanguageEnglish
CurrencyAzerbaijan Manat (AZN)Pound Sterling (GBP)
SocketsCF220 V, 50 HzG230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+4UTC, UTC+1 in summer
Emergency number102 or 112112 or 999
Elevation-28 m47 m
Main airportHeydar Aliyev International Airport (GYD)22 km from centre79 non-stop destinationsEdinburgh Airport (EDI)11 km from centre163 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-10 days

By the numbers

MeasureBakuEdinburgh
City population2,300,500488,050
People per km²1,0751,884
Museums within 10 km5032
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km23
Swim season, months above 21 °C4 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Baku or Edinburgh somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Rainfall where no rain gauge is within 25 km is from the TerraClimate 1991-2020 climatology (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, Scientific Data), read at the city. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Non-stop route lists from the "Airlines and destinations" tables on English Wikipedia airport articles, by Wikipedia contributors, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Currency from the ISO 4217 register maintained by SIX, cross-checked against country data from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Price level from World Bank open data (PPP conversion factor for private consumption and official exchange rate), CC BY 4.0. Time zones from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0); clock offsets computed from the IANA time zone database. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.