VacationSelector

Belfast or Edinburgh?

Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Your match

Belfast
48
match

Wins on nature & day trips with your weighting.

Edinburgh
✓ Best match
58
match

Wins on museums & heritage and good for families 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 Belfast if the point of the trip is what lies beyond the city: much of the surrounding land is protected, the sea is 1km from the centre, and there are 2 theme parks within reach.

Choose Edinburgh if you want the city itself, with more museums, far more notable places within walking distance, and a wider choice of restaurants and bars.

Scoreboard

Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.

BelfastEdinburgh
Beaches & swimming. Edinburgh leads by 7 points.7
BelfastEdinburgh
Score4855
Swim season months00
Beaches 10 km1020
Coast distance1 km3 km
Water distance1 km3 km
Places to eat. Edinburgh leads by 14 points.14
BelfastEdinburgh
Score5670
Restaurants within 2 km of centre4321,023
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km3135
Museums & heritage. Edinburgh leads by 28 points.28
BelfastEdinburgh
Score2957
Museums within 10 km1830
Museums within 2 km of centre622
Share of museums within 2 km %3373
Unesco sites within 50 km13
Nightlife. Edinburgh leads by 16 points.16
BelfastEdinburgh
Score4864
Drinking venues within 4 km5501,193
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre348884
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %6374
Nightclubs within 4 km2965
Nature & day trips. Belfast leads by 18 points.18
BelfastEdinburgh
Score5335
Protected land share 50 km %192
Landscape blanket share 50 km %131
Land share of disc %6585
Park area within 2 km68 hectares166 hectares
Good for families. Edinburgh leads by 24 points.24
BelfastEdinburgh
Score4872
Tourist attractions within 2 km1687
Park area within 2 km68 hectares166 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km20
Sights concentration. Edinburgh leads by 18 points.18
BelfastEdinburgh
Score4260
Notable places within 2 km43126
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Belfast and Edinburgh are level on 54.
BelfastEdinburgh
Score5454
Price level global84.984.9
Daily budget——
Year-round weather. Belfast and Edinburgh are level on 51.
BelfastEdinburgh
Score5151
Monthly daytime high6.9 °C to 19 °C6.6 °C to 18.8 °C
Monthly rainfall55 mm to 89 mm43 mm to 80 mm
Dry months00
0255075100

Where they differ

Belfast leads on what sits outside the built-up area: 19% of the land around it is protected, against 2% around Edinburgh, and it has 2 theme parks within reach where Edinburgh has none.

Edinburgh has about twice as many museums, most of them grouped tightly around the centre, and 3 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Belfast's 1. It also has many more tourist attractions near the centre and roughly three times as many notable places within walking distance, so the city works better on foot.

Where they are alike

Both run daytime highs of about 7-19°C across the year, warmest in July and coolest in January, and neither has a month with 40mm of rain or less, so waterproofs travel with you either way.

Both are coastal cities, with the sea 1km from Belfast's centre and 3km from Edinburgh's, and neither has a month of sea at 21°C or more. The range of kitchens on offer is similar in both.

Which traveller are you?

Travelling with children: Edinburgh, for the number of attractions near the centre and about twice as much park space as Belfast. Belfast answers with 2 theme parks within reach, which Edinburgh does not have at all.

Museum-minded visitors: Edinburgh, with about twice as many museums, grouped close to the centre, and 3 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Belfast's 1. Sightseeing on foot works better there too.

Walkers and day-trippers: Belfast, where 19% of the surrounding land is protected against 2% around Edinburgh, and the sea is 1km from the centre. Edinburgh's advantage is indoors and after dark, with about twice as many bars and clubs.

What the numbers don't tell you

The value comparison between these two carries no information. It rests on a national price level that is identical for both by construction, and this data holds no daily budget for either city, so nothing here says which trip costs more. Decide on the other axes.

Beach counts flatter both: Edinburgh has 20 nearby against Belfast's 10, but neither has a month with sea at 21°C or more, so these are coasts for walking rather than swimming. The summer peak of 19°C also arrives alongside some of the wettest weeks of the Belfast year.

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.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Belfast
7
8
10
12
15
18
19
19
17
13
10
7
Edinburgh
7
7
9
12
14
17
19
19
17
13
9
7
Sea temperature, °C
Belfast
9
8
8
8
9
11
12
13
14
14
12
11
Edinburgh
7
6
6
7
10
12
14
14
13
12
10
8
Rainfall, mm
Belfast
74
62
60
56
55
65
74
86
67
89
87
85
Edinburgh
62
47
47
43
49
63
65
69
55
80
68
63
Daylight, hours per day
Belfast
8
10
12
14
16
17
17
15
13
11
9
7
Edinburgh
8
10
12
14
16
18
17
15
13
11
8
7
Sunshine, hours per day
Belfast
2
2
3
5
6
5
5
5
4
3
2
2
Edinburgh
2
3
4
5
6
5
5
5
4
3
3
2

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Belfast: 1991-2020 normals, Belfast / Aldergrove Airport (19.4 km from centre). Edinburgh: 1991-2020 normals, Edinburgh Airport (10 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Belfast is at its best from May to August: highs of 18-19°C at the peak, and its driest weeks in spring at about 55mm. The sea is warmest in September at 14°C, but autumn turns wet, with 89mm in October.

Edinburgh holds 19°C through July and August, when the sea also reaches 14°C, and its spring is the drier of the two at 43-47mm from February to April. That makes it the better bet for a shoulder-season trip.

Getting there

Flying fromBelfastEdinburgh
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 15 m
€72-142
BHD · 4 km
1 h 20 m
€41-45
EDI · 11 km
PalmaPMI
2 h 50 m
no fares
BFS · 20 km
2 h 55 m
no fares
EDI · 11 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
6 h 40 m
no fares
DUB · 132 km
6 h 50 m
no fares
EDI · 11 km
MalagaAGP
3 h 0 m
€135-197
BFS · 20 km
3 h 10 m
no fares
EDI · 11 km
ArrecifeACE
4 h 5 m
no fares
BFS · 20 km
4 h 20 m
no fares
EDI · 11 km
AlicanteALC
2 h 50 m
no fares
BFS · 20 km
3 h 0 m
€106
EDI · 11 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 40 m
no fares
BFS · 20 km
1 h 40 m
€78-108
1 stop
EDI · 11 km
Puerto del RosarioFUE
4 h 10 m
no fares
BFS · 20 km
4 h 25 m
no fares
EDI · 11 km
MarrakechRAK
3 h 40 m
no fares
BFS · 20 km
3 h 55 m
no fares
EDI · 11 km
CancunCUN
9 h 30 m
no fares
DUB · 132 km
9 h 40 m
no fares
GLA · 78 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

MeasureBelfastEdinburgh
Official languageEnglishEnglish
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Pound Sterling (GBP)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzG230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC, UTC+1 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999112 or 999
Elevation3 m47 m
Main airportGeorge Best Belfast City Airport (BHD)4 km from centre24 non-stop destinationsEdinburgh Airport (EDI)11 km from centre158 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureBelfastEdinburgh
City population345,006488,050
People per km²3,0001,884
Museums within 10 km832
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km13
Distinct cuisines in the centre4478
Swim season, months above 21 °CNoneNone

Where else could you go?

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

Browse every destination we have measured

Sources

© OpenStreetMap contributors, data available under the Open Database Licence. Place counts include data from Overture Maps Foundation (CDLA Permissive 2.0), assembled from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and other providers. Notable-place counts from Wikidata (CC0), weighted by Wikipedia language editions. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.

Scores follow rubric v2; snapshot generated 2026-08-31. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.