Belgrade or Zadar?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on nightlife and places to eat with your weighting.
Wins on beaches & swimming and nature & day trips 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 Belgrade if you want a city that works on foot: the wider choice of restaurants, the museums and the concentration of nightlife are all there, with summer highs reaching 30°C.
Choose Zadar if the trip is built around swimming, with 49 beaches nearby and four months of sea warm enough to stay in, plus more protected land within day-trip reach.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Zadar leads by 73 points.73
| Belgrade | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 73 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 4 |
| Beaches 10 km | 9 | 49 |
| Coast distance | 292 km | 0 km |
| Water distance | — | 0 km |
Places to eat. Belgrade leads by 38 points.38
| Belgrade | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 63 | 25 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 776 | 143 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 29 | 11 |
Museums & heritage. Belgrade leads by 20 points.20
| Belgrade | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 53 | 33 |
| Museums within 10 km | 67 | 8 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 47 | 8 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 70 | 100 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 0 | 2 |
Nightlife. Belgrade leads by 40 points.40
| Belgrade | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 65 | 25 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 1,163 | 194 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 841 | 139 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 72 | 72 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 130 | 4 |
Nature & day trips. Zadar leads by 17 points.17
| Belgrade | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 38 | 55 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 6 | 12 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 2 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 47 |
| Park area within 2 km | 147 hectares | 30 hectares |
Good for families. Belgrade leads by 20 points.20
| Belgrade | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 51 | 31 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 14 | 9 |
| Park area within 2 km | 147 hectares | 30 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 1 | 1 |
Sights concentration. Belgrade leads by 37 points.37
| Belgrade | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 68 | 31 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 190 | 23 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Belgrade leads by 5 points.5
| Belgrade | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 85 | 80 |
| Price level global | 41.7 | 48.5 |
| Daily budget | €99 | €138 |
Year-round weather. Zadar leads by 4 points.4
| Belgrade | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 65 | 69 |
| Monthly daytime high | 5 °C to 29.7 °C | 10.4 °C to 31 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 44 mm to 95 mm | 25 mm to 117 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 2 |
Where they differ
Belgrade has many times as many restaurants near the centre as Zadar, and a much wider range of kitchens. It also has many times as many places to drink and as many clubs, most of them close to the centre, and far more notable places within walking distance.
Zadar is the swimming trip: 49 beaches nearby against Belgrade's 9, and four months when the sea holds at 21°C or more. 12% of the land around it is protected against 6% around Belgrade, with two UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach.
Where they are alike
Weather is the closest call. Both run warm in summer, with highs near 30°C, and neither falls below freezing by day in winter, though Zadar's January is the milder of the two.
Both also rate well on value, on national estimates of €99 a day for Serbia and €138 for Croatia. And both put nature within day-trip reach, in different forms: protected coastal land around Zadar, park space near the centre in Belgrade.
Which traveller are you?
A traveller who plans evenings around eating and going out should take Belgrade: many times the restaurants and drinking places of Zadar, a wider range of kitchens, and most of it within walking distance of the centre.
Families set on swimming want Zadar, with 49 beaches nearby and the sea at 21°C or more for four months. Families after museums, parks and attractions in one walkable place do better in Belgrade.
Anyone who wants open country more than pavement will prefer Zadar, where 12% of the surrounding land is protected against 6% around Belgrade, and two UNESCO-listed places lie within day-trip reach.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €99 for Serbia and €138 for Croatia, are national price levels for restaurants and hotels rather than measurements of either city. A capital and a heavily visited coastal town can each sit far from their country's average, by more than the gap between the two, so neither figure tells you what a week will cost.
No weather station near Zadar records sunshine hours, so that side of the weather comparison is unmeasured, and its monthly ratings rest on temperature, rainfall and sea temperature alone. Its driest and hottest stretch, at 31°C, is also the peak of the beach season.
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. Belgrade: 1991-2020 normals, Beograd (2.1 km from centre). Zadar: 1999-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Zadar / Zemunik (9.9 km from centre).
Belgrade is at its best from May to September, when daytime highs run 24-30°C. June is the wettest of those months at 95mm, so late summer gives the steadier dry warmth. January, at 5°C, is the least rewarding time to go.
Zadar's best window is June and September, at 26-28°C with the sea at 22-23°C. High summer is its driest stretch, at 25-32mm, and also its hottest. Late autumn brings the heaviest rain of the year.
Getting there
| Flying from | Belgrade | Zadar |
|---|---|---|
| AmsterdamAMS | 2 h 20 m €196-211 1 stop BEG · 12 km | 2 h 10 m €186-201 1 stop SPU · 107 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 2 h 20 m €87-103 BEG · 12 km | 2 h 5 m €169-225 SPU · 107 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 1 h 35 m €185-297 BEG · 12 km | 1 h 55 m no fares SPU · 107 km |
| ZurichZRH | 1 h 45 m €203-237 BEG · 12 km | 1 h 35 m €247-298 1 stop SPU · 107 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 30 m €127-186 BEG · 12 km | 1 h 5 m €294 SPU · 107 km |
| ViennaVIE | 1 h 15 m €138-153 BEG · 12 km | 1 h 10 m €45-192 ZAD · 10 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 1 h 55 m €177-224 1 stop BEG · 12 km | 1 h 40 m €161-226 1 stop ZAD · 10 km |
| MunichMUC | 1 h 35 m €124-196 BEG · 12 km | 1 h 25 m no fares SPU · 107 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 2 h 40 m €103-154 BEG · 12 km | 2 h 20 m no fares ZAD · 10 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 9 h 10 m €703-796 1 stop BEG · 12 km | 9 h 0 m no fares SPU · 107 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 2026-09 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 | Belgrade | Zadar |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Serbian | Croatian |
| Currency | Serbian Dinar (RSD) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CF230 V, 50 Hz | CF230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer |
| Emergency number | Police 92/192, ambulance 94/194, fire 93/193 | 112 |
| Elevation | 117 m | 5 m |
| Main airport | Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport (BEG)12 km from centre123 non-stop destinations | Zadar Airport (ZAD)10 km from centre67 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 14 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Belgrade | Zadar |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 1,197,714 | 70,779 |
| People per km² | 3,327 | – |
| Museums within 10 km | 65 | 1 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 0 | 2 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 62 | 17 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | – | 4 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Belgrade or Zadar somewhere new.