Beijing or New York?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on value for money and year-round weather with your weighting.
Wins on beaches & swimming and sights concentration 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. New York leads by 64 points.64
| Beijing | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 64 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 3 |
| Beaches 10 km | 0 | 17 |
| Coast distance | 145 km | 1 km |
| Water distance | — | 1 km |
Museums & heritage. Beijing leads by 3 points.3
| Beijing | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 63 | 60 |
| Museums within 10 km | 95 | 119 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 15 | 31 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 16 | 26 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 6 | 2 |
Nature & day trips. New York leads by 4 points.4
| Beijing | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 35 | 39 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 3 | 4 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 69 |
| Park area within 2 km | 143 hectares | 134 hectares |
Good for families. Beijing leads by 5 points.5
| Beijing | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 77 | 72 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 41 | 37 |
| Park area within 2 km | 143 hectares | 134 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 12 | 7 |
Sights concentration. New York leads by 24 points.24
| Beijing | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 50 | 74 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 69 | 268 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Beijing leads by 36 points.36
| Beijing | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 79 | 43 |
| Price level global | 49 | 100 |
| Daily budget | — | — |
Year-round weather. Beijing leads by 8 points.8
| Beijing | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 66 | 58 |
| Monthly daytime high | 2.2 °C to 31.8 °C | 4.5 °C to 30.1 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 3 mm to 163 mm | 74 mm to 112 mm |
| Dry months | 8 | 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. Beijing: 1991-2020 normals, Beijing (11.1 km from centre). New York: 1991-2020 normals, LaGuardia Airport (12.9 km from centre).
Getting there
| Flying from | Beijing | New York |
|---|---|---|
| SeoulICN, GMP | 1 h 45 m €180-197 PKX · 45 km | 13 h 45 m no fares JFK · 21 km |
| TokyoHND, NRT | 3 h 10 m €312-367 PEK · 25 km | 13 h 30 m €989-1136 JFK · 21 km |
| TorontoYYZ, YHM, YTZ | 13 h 5 m €1,020-1172 2 stops PEK · 25 km | 1 h 20 m €206-234 LGA · 13 km |
| Hong KongHKG | 2 h 55 m €151-190 PKX · 45 km | 15 h 55 m no fares JFK · 21 km |
| WashingtonIAD, DCA | 13 h 45 m no fares PEK · 25 km | 1 h 5 m €203-258 LGA · 13 km |
| BostonBOS, PSM | 13 h 25 m no fares PEK · 25 km | 1 h 0 m €193-222 JFK · 21 km |
| Los AngelesLAX, BUR, SNA, VNY | 12 h 30 m no fares PEK · 25 km | 5 h 20 m €314-354 1 stop JFK · 21 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 10 h 20 m no fares PEK · 25 km | 7 h 30 m €445-517 JFK · 21 km |
| Mexico CityMEX, NLU, TLC | 15 h 20 m no fares PEK · 25 km | 4 h 40 m €374-446 1 stop JFK · 21 km |
| DohaDOH | 7 h 55 m €595-787 3 stops PKX · 45 km | 13 h 20 m no fares JFK · 21 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 | Beijing | New York |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Putonghua | – |
| Currency | Yuan Renminbi (CNY) | US Dollar (USD) |
| Sockets | ACI220 V, 50 Hz | AB120 V, 60 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+8 | UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer |
| Emergency number | Police 110, ambulance 120, fire 119 | 911 |
| Elevation | 43 m | 25 m |
| Main airport | Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK)25 km from centre88 non-stop destinations | John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)21 km from centre188 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 6 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Beijing | New York |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 21,893,095 | 8,804,190 |
| People per km² | 1,334 | 7,256 |
| Museums within 10 km | 83 | 157 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 6 | 2 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 29 | 132 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | – | 3 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Beijing or New York somewhere new.