VacationSelector
The Forbidden City, Beijing
BeijingThe Forbidden City
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle

Photos: Beijing by BI ravencrow, Pexels License; Cardiff by Tevfik Teker, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Beijing or Cardiff?

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 Beijing for

  • food and drink
  • culture and sights
  • wellness

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

Choose Cardiff for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Cardiff’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. Beijing 6, Cardiff 30: Cardiff leads by 24 points.
Food & drink. Beijing 81, Cardiff 45: Beijing leads by 36 points.
Culture & sights. Beijing 93, Cardiff 58: Beijing leads by 35 points.
Nightlife. Beijing 58, Cardiff 50: Beijing leads by 8 points.
Nature & outdoors. Beijing 60, Cardiff 70: Cardiff leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Beijing 85, Cardiff 72: Beijing leads by 13 points.
Good for families. Beijing 64, Cardiff 58: Beijing leads by 6 points.
Getting around. Beijing 69, Cardiff 66: Beijing leads by 3 points.
Shopping & style. Beijing 72, Cardiff 50: Beijing leads by 22 points.
Affordability. Beijing 68, Cardiff 46: Beijing leads by 22 points.
Live music & performing arts. Beijing 68, Cardiff 57: Beijing leads by 11 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Beijing 55, Cardiff 27: Beijing leads by 28 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Beijing and Cardiff.

Your match

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

Beijing
Best match
65match

Wins on food and drink and culture and sights with your weighting.

Cardiff
52match

Wins on beaches and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Beijing in July

32 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
163 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Cardiff in July

20 °Cdaytime high
13 °Cnight-time low
83 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
17 °Csea
16 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
BeijingCardiff

Where the figures come from

Cardiff 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.

Cardiff's sunshine is measured 83 km from the centre, at Lyneham.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Beijing: 1991-2020 normals, Beijing (11.1 km from centre). Cardiff: 1991-2020 normals, Cardiff-Wales Airport (14.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBeijingCardiff
Official languagePutonghuaEnglish
CurrencyYuan Renminbi (CNY)Pound Sterling (GBP)
SocketsACI220 V, 50 HzG230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+8UTC, UTC+1 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 110, ambulance 120, fire 119112 or 999
Elevation43 m41 m
Main airportBeijing Capital International Airport (PEK)25 km from centre104 non-stop destinationsCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year6 days8 days

By the numbers

MeasureBeijingCardiff
City population21,893,095383,536
People per km²1,3342,734
Museums within 10 km839
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km61
Swim season, months above 21 °C-None

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Beijing or Cardiff 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. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.