VacationSelector

Beijing or Hanoi?

Two destinations compared in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

The Forbidden City, Beijing
Beijing

Photo: BI ravencrow, Pexels License

The Turtle Tower in Hoan Kiem Lake, Hanoi
Hanoi

Photo: xiquinhosilva, CC BY 2.0, cropped

Your match

Beijing
✓ Best match
65
match

Wins on getting around and families with your weighting.

Hanoi
52
match

Wins on prices and food and drink with your weighting.

What matters to you?

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.

Scoreboard

Our verdict on each category, scored 0 to 100 against fixed benchmark cities.

BeijingHanoi
Beaches & swimming. Beijing and Hanoi are level on 6.
Food & drink. Hanoi leads by 4 points.4
Culture & sights. Beijing leads by 21 points.21
Nightlife. Beijing leads by 8 points.8
Nature & outdoors. Beijing leads by 8 points.8
Day trips. Beijing leads by 27 points.27
Good for families. Beijing leads by 29 points.29
Getting around. Beijing leads by 33 points.33
Shopping & style. Beijing leads by 22 points.22
Affordability. Hanoi leads by 30 points.30
Live music & performing arts. Beijing leads by 28 points.28
Wellness & relaxation. Beijing leads by 9 points.9
0255075100

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

When should you go?

Pick the month you can travel and see both cities side by side. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Climate figures for July
JulyBeijingHanoi
Daytime high32 °C34 °C
Night-time low23 °C27 °C
Rainfall in the month163 mm311 mm
Sunshine6 hours a day6 hours a day
Daylight15 hours a day13 hours a day

The whole year

Each row is shaded against that destination’s own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that figure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Beijing
2
6
13
21
27
31
32
31
27
19
10
4
Hanoi
19
22
24
28
32
35
34
33
32
30
27
23
Rainfall, mm
Beijing
3
6
9
23
38
74
163
112
56
27
14
3
Hanoi
23
23
52
72
204
272
311
310
179
109
73
30
Daylight, hours per day
Beijing
10
11
12
13
14
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Hanoi
11
11
12
13
13
13
13
13
12
12
11
11
Sunshine, hours per day
Beijing
6
6
7
8
9
7
6
7
7
7
6
6
Hanoi
2
2
2
2
6
6
6
5
6
5
4
4

Where the figures come from

Hanoi's sunshine is measured 86 km from the centre, at Phu Lien.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Beijing: 1991-2020 normals, Beijing (11.1 km from centre). Hanoi: 1991-2020 normals, Ha Noi (4.4 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromBeijingHanoi
ShanghaiPVG, SHA
1 h 55 m
€144-160
PKX · 45 km
2 h 55 m
€194-215
HAN · 22 km
SeoulICN, GMP
1 h 45 m
€180-197
PKX · 45 km
3 h 50 m
€224-243
HAN · 22 km
ChengduTFU, CTU
2 h 25 m
€217-253
PKX · 45 km
1 h 50 m
no fares
HAN · 22 km
Hong KongHKG
2 h 55 m
€151-190
PKX · 45 km
1 h 40 m
€117-131
HAN · 22 km
BangkokBKK, DMK
4 h 30 m
€173-234
1 stop
PKX · 45 km
1 h 50 m
€134-146
HAN · 22 km
GuangzhouCAN
2 h 50 m
€184-282
PKX · 45 km
1 h 35 m
€164
HAN · 22 km
TokyoHND, NRT
3 h 10 m
€312-367
PEK · 25 km
5 h 0 m
€334-439
1 stop
HAN · 22 km
ShenzhenSZX
2 h 55 m
€220-303
PKX · 45 km
1 h 40 m
no fares
HAN · 22 km
VladivostokVVO
2 h 15 m
€140-284
PKX · 45 km
4 h 45 m
no fares
HAN · 22 km
DohaDOH
7 h 55 m
€595-787
3 stops
PKX · 45 km
7 h 10 m
no fares
HAN · 22 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

MeasureBeijingHanoi
Official languagePutonghuaVietnamese
CurrencyYuan Renminbi (CNY)Dong (VND)
SocketsACI220 V, 50 HzACFG220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+8UTC+7
Emergency numberPolice 110, ambulance 120, fire 119Police 113, ambulance 115, fire 114
Elevation43 m10 m
Main airportBeijing Capital International Airport (PEK)25 km from centre104 non-stop destinationsNoi Bai International Airport (HAN)22 km from centre91 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year6 days-

By the numbers

MeasureBeijingHanoi
City population21,893,0958,717,600
People per km²1,3342,595
Museums within 10 km8314
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km61

Where else could you go?

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

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate and flight figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-27. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.