Bergen or Reykjavik?
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 sights concentration with your weighting.
Wins on nature & day trips and places to eat 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 Bergen if you want a compact centre where the notable places sit within walking distance, more park space close at hand, and the warmer of the two through the year, with summer highs near 20°C.
Choose Reykjavik if the trip is built around what lies outside the city: 16% of the surrounding land is protected against 1% around Bergen, with a wider range of kitchens back in town.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Reykjavik leads by 6 points.6
| Bergen | Reykjavik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 54 | 60 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 17 | 33 |
| Coast distance | 0 km | 0 km |
| Water distance | 0 km | 0 km |
Places to eat. Reykjavik leads by 8 points.8
| Bergen | Reykjavik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 41 | 49 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 237 | 261 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 20 | 29 |
Museums & heritage. Bergen leads by 1 points.1
| Bergen | Reykjavik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 51 | 50 |
| Museums within 10 km | 35 | 34 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 25 | 23 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 71 | 68 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 1 | 1 |
Nightlife. Bergen and Reykjavik are level on 27.
| Bergen | Reykjavik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 27 | 27 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 217 | 192 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 201 | 166 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 93 | 86 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 4 | 10 |
Nature & day trips. Reykjavik leads by 39 points.39
| Bergen | Reykjavik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 20 | 59 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 1 | 16 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 55 | 56 |
| Park area within 2 km | 36 hectares | 28 hectares |
Good for families. Reykjavik leads by 2 points.2
| Bergen | Reykjavik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 40 | 42 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 22 | 21 |
| Park area within 2 km | 36 hectares | 28 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 0 | 1 |
Sights concentration. Bergen leads by 4 points.4
| Bergen | Reykjavik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 52 | 48 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 77 | 61 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Bergen leads by 13 points.13
| Bergen | Reykjavik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 54 | 41 |
| Price level global | 85.1 | 102.8 |
| Daily budget | €203 | €243 |
Year-round weather. Bergen leads by 1 points.1
| Bergen | Reykjavik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 38 | 37 |
| Monthly daytime high | 4.7 °C to 19.7 °C | 3.2 °C to 14.9 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 109 mm to 290 mm | 41 mm to 97 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 0 |
Where they differ
Bergen packs more notable places into walking distance of its centre and has somewhat more park space nearby. It is the warmer city across the year, and the national daily estimate for Norway, €203, sits below Iceland's €243, though that says nothing about either city itself.
Reykjavik's advantage is what surrounds it: 16% of the land is protected against 1% around Bergen. It also offers a wider range of kitchens, 33 beaches nearby against Bergen's 17, and one theme park within reach.
Where they are alike
Nightlife is the closest match: both have a similar number of places to drink, and in each city most of them are near the centre, so an evening out means a short walk. Reykjavik does have about three times as many nightclubs.
Beyond that, the two hold about as many museums, with 1 UNESCO-listed place within day-trip reach of each, a similar count of attractions near the centre, and no month at 40mm of rain or less.
Which traveller are you?
Anyone whose trip is built on landscape should take Reykjavik. 16% of the surrounding land is protected against 1% around Bergen, so days out of the city have far more open country to aim at.
Families will find the two close, with a similar count of attractions near the centre in both. Bergen has more park space and warmer summer days; Reykjavik has one theme park within reach.
Travellers who plan their evenings should lean to Reykjavik, with a wider range of kitchens and about three times as many nightclubs. Places to drink are comparable in number, and central, in both cities.
What the numbers don't tell you
Reykjavik has the longer list of beaches nearby, but neither city has a month of sea at 21°C or more: Bergen peaks at 16°C, Reykjavik at 11°C, so those beaches are about coastal access rather than swimming weather.
Two figures are weaker than they look. The daily budget is a single national estimate per country, a restaurant and hotel price level rather than a measurement of either city, and a heavily visited city can sit far from its own country average. And no weather station near Bergen records sunshine hours, so that figure is missing rather than low, leaving that side of the weather comparison unmeasured.
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. Bergen: 1991-2020 normals, Bergen / Florida (1.2 km from centre). Reykjavik: 1991-2020 normals, Reykjavik (2.3 km from centre).
Bergen is at its best in July and August, when highs reach 20°C and the sea peaks at 16°C in August, though August brings 206mm of rain. May and June are the drier end of its year, closer to 109mm.
Reykjavik's window is June and July, cooler at 13-15°C but far drier, around 41mm in June. Its winter stays near 86-97mm where Bergen's runs 253-290mm, which matters if you travel off season.
Getting there
| Flying from | Bergen | Reykjavik |
|---|---|---|
| CopenhagenCPH | 1 h 30 m no fares BGO · 12 km | 3 h 10 m €216-282 1 stop KEF · 37 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 45 m no fares BGO · 12 km | 3 h 5 m €293-407 2 stops KEF · 37 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 55 m no fares BGO · 12 km | 2 h 55 m €245-283 1 stop KEF · 37 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 2 h 0 m no fares BGO · 12 km | 3 h 30 m €313-393 2 stops KEF · 37 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 2 h 10 m no fares BGO · 12 km | 3 h 20 m €247-346 1 stop KEF · 37 km |
| StockholmARN, BMA, NYO, VST | 1 h 30 m €82-83 1 stop BGO · 12 km | 3 h 10 m €174-231 1 stop KEF · 37 km |
| GdanskGDN | 1 h 55 m no fares BGO · 12 km | 3 h 40 m no fares KEF · 37 km |
| AlicanteALC | 3 h 35 m no fares BGO · 12 km | 4 h 25 m €240-369 2 stops KEF · 37 km |
| MunichMUC | 2 h 20 m no fares BGO · 12 km | 3 h 50 m €275-453 1 stop KEF · 37 km |
| Las PalmasLPA | 5 h 15 m no fares BGO · 12 km | 5 h 25 m no fares KEF · 37 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 | Bergen | Reykjavik |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Norwegian, Nynorsk, Bokmål, Sámi | Icelandic |
| Currency | Norwegian Krone (NOK) | Iceland Krona (ISK) |
| Sockets | CF230 V, 50 Hz | CF230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer | UTC |
| Emergency number | Police 112, ambulance 113, fire 110 | 112 |
| Elevation | 5 m | 8 m |
| Main airport | Bergen Airport, Flesland (BGO)12 km from centre46 non-stop destinations | Keflavik International Airport (KEF)37 km from centre88 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 12 days | 16 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Bergen | Reykjavik |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 291,189 | 138,772 |
| People per km² | 3,339 | 569 |
| Museums within 10 km | 31 | 23 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 1 | 1 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 32 | 42 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | None | None |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Bergen or Reykjavik somewhere new.