Barcelona or Rio de Janeiro?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Too close to call, 2 points apart
Wins on places to eat and nightlife with your weighting.
Wins on beaches & swimming and nature & day trips with your weighting.
What matters to you?
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Rio de Janeiro leads by 35 points.35
| Barcelona | Rio de Janeiro | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 65 | 100 |
| Swim season months | 3 | 12 |
| Beaches 10 km | 20 | 61 |
| Coast distance | 2 km | 1 km |
| Water distance | 2 km | 1 km |
Places to eat. Barcelona leads by 36 points.36
| Barcelona | Rio de Janeiro | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 90 | 54 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 3,786 | 804 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 41 | 16 |
Museums & heritage. Rio de Janeiro leads by 1 points.1
| Barcelona | Rio de Janeiro | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 68 | 69 |
| Museums within 10 km | 105 | 110 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 49 | 51 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 47 | 46 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 3 | 3 |
Nightlife. Barcelona leads by 25 points.25
| Barcelona | Rio de Janeiro | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 82 | 57 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 2,711 | 818 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 1,641 | 509 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 61 | 62 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 245 | 50 |
Nature & day trips. Rio de Janeiro leads by 12 points.12
| Barcelona | Rio de Janeiro | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 50 | 62 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 10 | 21 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 17 |
| Land share of disc % | 51 | 57 |
| Park area within 2 km | 49 hectares | 113 hectares |
Good for families. Barcelona leads by 6 points.6
| Barcelona | Rio de Janeiro | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 65 | 59 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 60 | 30 |
| Park area within 2 km | 49 hectares | 113 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 3 | 1 |
Sights concentration. Barcelona leads by 17 points.17
| Barcelona | Rio de Janeiro | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 73 | 56 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 258 | 98 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Rio de Janeiro leads by 10 points.10
| Barcelona | Rio de Janeiro | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 71 | 81 |
| Price level global | 60.8 | 46.1 |
| Daily budget | €122 | — |
Year-round weather. Rio de Janeiro leads by 7 points.7
| Barcelona | Rio de Janeiro | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 78 | 85 |
| Monthly daytime high | 13.9 °C to 28.9 °C | 24 °C to 28.4 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 27 mm to 83 mm | 42 mm to 232 mm |
| Dry months | 5 | 0 |
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. Barcelona: 1991-2020 normals, Barcelona / Aeropuerto (14.4 km from centre). Rio de Janeiro: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.
Getting there
| Flying from | Barcelona | Rio de Janeiro |
|---|---|---|
| Buenos AiresEZE, AEP | 13 h 0 m €1,610-1626 BCN · 13 km | 3 h 0 m €212-267 GIG · 12 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 2 h 0 m €37-96 BCN · 13 km | 11 h 35 m €996-1109 2 stops GIG · 12 km |
| Sao PauloGRU, VCP, CGH, RTE | 11 h 0 m no fares BCN · 13 km | 1 h 5 m €113-134 GIG · 12 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 40 m €79-101 BCN · 13 km | 11 h 30 m €957-1014 2 stops GIG · 12 km |
| MadridMAD | 1 h 15 m €114-118 BCN · 13 km | 10 h 15 m €910-925 1 stop GIG · 12 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 40 m €54-89 BCN · 13 km | 11 h 25 m €897-908 GIG · 12 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 7 h 55 m €562-701 BCN · 13 km | 9 h 45 m €609-699 2 stops GIG · 12 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 2 h 10 m €132-158 BCN · 13 km | 11 h 55 m €900-974 1 stop GIG · 12 km |
| LisbonLIS | 1 h 50 m €46-94 BCN · 13 km | 9 h 45 m €821-922 GIG · 12 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 6 h 45 m €369-388 BCN · 13 km | 14 h 40 m €1,154-1306 GIG · 12 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 | Barcelona | Rio de Janeiro |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Spanish | Portuguese |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Brazilian Real (BRL) |
| Sockets | CF230 V, 50 Hz | CN60 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer | UTC-3 |
| Emergency number | 112 | Police 190, ambulance 192, fire 193 |
| Elevation | 9 m | 31 m |
| Main airport | Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport (BCN)13 km from centre229 non-stop destinations | Rio de Janeiro Galeão – Tom Jobim International Airport (GIG)12 km from centre59 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 14 days | 14 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Barcelona | Rio de Janeiro |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 1,731,649 | 6,211,223 |
| People per km² | 17,094 | 4,930 |
| Museums within 10 km | 95 | 70 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 3 | 3 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 128 | 27 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 3 months | 12 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Barcelona or Rio de Janeiro somewhere new.