Bath or Belfast?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on museums & heritage and year-round weather with your weighting.
Wins on beaches & swimming 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 Bath if the trip is about heritage on foot: its museums sit close together around the centre, and there are 2 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, with slightly warmer summer days.
Choose Belfast if you want the coast at hand, with the sea 1km from the centre and beaches close by, plus a wider choice of places to eat and far more going on after dark.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Belfast leads by 40 points.40
| Bath | Belfast | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 8 | 48 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 1 | 10 |
| Coast distance | 29 km | 1 km |
| Water distance | 29 km | 1 km |
Places to eat. Belfast leads by 10 points.10
| Bath | Belfast | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 46 | 56 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 245 | 432 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 26 | 31 |
Museums & heritage. Bath leads by 18 points.18
| Bath | Belfast | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 47 | 29 |
| Museums within 10 km | 20 | 18 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 14 | 6 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 70 | 33 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 2 | 1 |
Nightlife. Belfast leads by 12 points.12
| Bath | Belfast | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 36 | 48 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 320 | 550 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 240 | 348 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 75 | 63 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 11 | 29 |
Nature & day trips. Belfast leads by 9 points.9
| Bath | Belfast | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 44 | 53 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 28 | 19 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 27 | 13 |
| Land share of disc % | 92 | 65 |
| Park area within 2 km | 45 hectares | 68 hectares |
Good for families. Belfast leads by 8 points.8
| Bath | Belfast | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 40 | 48 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 14 | 16 |
| Park area within 2 km | 45 hectares | 68 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 1 | 2 |
Sights concentration. Belfast leads by 10 points.10
| Bath | Belfast | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 32 | 42 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 25 | 43 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Bath and Belfast are level on 54.
| Bath | Belfast | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 54 | 54 |
| Price level global | 84.9 | 84.9 |
| Daily budget | — | — |
Year-round weather. Bath leads by 4 points.4
| Bath | Belfast | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 55 | 51 |
| Monthly daytime high | 6.8 °C to 21.4 °C | 6.9 °C to 19 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 49 mm to 87 mm | 55 mm to 89 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 0 |
Where they differ
Bath's strength is heritage. It has a similar number of museums to Belfast, but they sit more tightly around the centre, and 2 UNESCO-listed places lie within day-trip reach against Belfast's 1. The countryside around it is also more protected.
Belfast is the coastal one: the sea is 1km from the centre against 29km at Bath, and 10 beaches lie nearby against Bath's 1. Evenings are busier too, with roughly twice as many places to drink and three times as many nightclubs, most of them central.
Where they are alike
Weather is where the two are closest. Both peak in July, at 21°C in Bath and 19°C in Belfast, both sit at 7°C in January, and neither has a month at 40mm of rain or less.
They also land close on families and on the outdoors: a similar number of tourist attractions near each centre, and green space within reach of both, whether protected countryside or city parkland.
Which traveller are you?
A heritage traveller should take Bath. Its museums sit tightly around the centre and 2 UNESCO-listed places are within day-trip reach, so a long weekend on foot covers most of what draws people there.
Families are better served in Belfast, with about twice as much park space near the centre, 2 theme parks within reach against Bath's 1, and 10 beaches close by.
Anyone travelling for food and evenings out should also pick Belfast: about twice as many restaurants near the centre, a somewhat wider range of kitchens, twice as many places to drink and three times as many nightclubs.
What the numbers don't tell you
The value figures carry no information about these two cities. They rest on a national price level that is identical for both by construction, and the data holds no daily budget for either, so no cost comparison between Bath and Belfast is possible here. Check prices yourself before booking.
Belfast's coastal advantage is about access rather than swimming: its sea peaks at 14°C, and Bath's warmer water is 29km from the centre. Neither city has a month at 40mm of rain or less, so wet days are likely whichever month you choose.
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. Bath: 1991-2020 normals, Lyneham (29.2 km from centre). Belfast: 1991-2020 normals, Belfast / Aldergrove Airport (19.4 km from centre).
Bath is at its best from June to August, with highs of 19-21°C and rainfall around 56-66mm; September still holds 18°C before October turns wet at 87mm, and winter days sit at 7-8°C.
Belfast is cooler and wetter in high summer: highs reach 18-19°C, but August is its wettest summer month at 86mm. May and June, at 55-65mm, are the steadier choice, and the sea is warmest in September, at 14°C.
Getting there
| Flying from | Bath | Belfast |
|---|---|---|
| PalmaPMI | 2 h 20 m no fares BRS · 25 km | 2 h 50 m no fares BFS · 20 km |
| MalagaAGP | 2 h 35 m no fares BRS · 25 km | 3 h 0 m €135-197 BFS · 20 km |
| ArrecifeACE | 3 h 45 m no fares BRS · 25 km | 4 h 5 m no fares BFS · 20 km |
| AlicanteALC | 2 h 25 m no fares BRS · 25 km | 2 h 50 m no fares BFS · 20 km |
| FaroFAO | 2 h 35 m no fares BRS · 25 km | 3 h 0 m no fares BFS · 20 km |
| Puerto del RosarioFUE | 3 h 50 m no fares BRS · 25 km | 4 h 10 m no fares BFS · 20 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 7 h 10 m €518-651 1 stop LHR · 132 km | 6 h 40 m no fares DUB · 132 km |
| MarrakechRAK | 3 h 20 m no fares BRS · 25 km | 3 h 40 m no fares BFS · 20 km |
| BeijingPEK, PKX | 10 h 15 m no fares LHR · 132 km | 10 h 25 m no fares DUB · 132 km |
| CancunCUN | 9 h 55 m no fares BHX · 126 km | 9 h 30 m no fares DUB · 132 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 | Bath | Belfast |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | English | English |
| Currency | Pound Sterling (GBP) | Pound Sterling (GBP) |
| Sockets | G230 V, 50 Hz | G230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Left | Left |
| Time zone | UTC, UTC+1 in summer | UTC, UTC+1 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 or 999 | 112 or 999 |
| Elevation | 132 m | 3 m |
| Main airport | Bristol Airport (BRS)25 km from centre116 non-stop destinations | George Best Belfast City Airport (BHD)4 km from centre24 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 8 days | 10 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Bath | Belfast |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 94,092 | 345,006 |
| People per km² | 3,245 | 3,000 |
| Museums within 10 km | 17 | 8 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 2 | 1 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 38 | 44 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | None | None |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Bath or Belfast somewhere new.