VacationSelector

Bilbao or Seville?

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

Your match

Too close to call, level with your weighting

Bilbao
54
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and nature & day trips with your weighting.

Seville
54
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 Bilbao if you want a summer trip where the sea is warm enough to swim, at 22°C in August, with protected country close by for walking days and heat that stays moderate.

Choose Seville if museums and heritage are the point of the trip, if you are travelling with children, or if you want dry, warm weather in spring and autumn rather than a coast.

Scoreboard

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

BilbaoSeville
Beaches & swimming. Bilbao leads by 31 points.31
BilbaoSeville
Score310
Swim season months10
Beaches 10 km12
Coast distance0 km65 km
Water distance0 km—
Places to eat. Seville leads by 4 points.4
BilbaoSeville
Score6266
Restaurants within 2 km of centre8401,370
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km2622
Museums & heritage. Seville leads by 18 points.18
BilbaoSeville
Score3856
Museums within 10 km2550
Museums within 2 km of centre1240
Share of museums within 2 km %4880
Unesco sites within 50 km11
Nightlife. Seville leads by 4 points.4
BilbaoSeville
Score5862
Drinking venues within 4 km8691,089
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre730679
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %8462
Nightclubs within 4 km5057
Nature & day trips. Bilbao leads by 16 points.16
BilbaoSeville
Score5337
Protected land share 50 km %118
Landscape blanket share 50 km %00
Land share of disc %70100
Park area within 2 km119 hectares82 hectares
Good for families. Seville leads by 18 points.18
BilbaoSeville
Score4765
Tourist attractions within 2 km1747
Park area within 2 km119 hectares82 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km02
Sights concentration. Seville leads by 3 points.3
BilbaoSeville
Score5255
Notable places within 2 km7992
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Bilbao and Seville are level on 71.
BilbaoSeville
Score7171
Price level global60.860.8
Daily budget€122€122
Year-round weather. Seville leads by 5 points.5
BilbaoSeville
Score7075
Monthly daytime high13.5 °C to 26.3 °C16.3 °C to 36.2 °C
Monthly rainfall53 mm to 170 mm1 mm to 78 mm
Dry months05
0255075100

Where they differ

Bilbao is the one with usable sea swimming, a month of water at 21°C or more that Seville has no equivalent of. More of the surrounding land is protected, 11% against 8%, with more park space near the centre too.

Seville has about twice as many museums, grouped tightly around the centre. For families it is the stronger base: roughly three times as many attractions near the centre and 2 theme parks within reach, where Bilbao has none.

Where they are alike

Both cities keep their notable places within walking distance of the centre. Seville has somewhat more of them, but in either case a few days can be spent largely on foot, without transport between sights.

Eating and drinking are close as well. Seville has about twice as many restaurants near the centre, Bilbao a wider range of kitchens; Seville has somewhat more places to drink, while nightclub numbers are similar, and in both they cluster centrally.

Which traveller are you?

If you want a city break with swimming attached, Bilbao is the only option here: one month with sea at 21°C or more and summer highs that stay near 26°C rather than punishing you.

Travelling with children, Seville is the more practical choice: far more attractions near the centre and 2 theme parks within reach, against Bilbao's greater park space and gentler summer temperatures.

For museums and old streets, Seville: about twice as many museums, tightly grouped and walkable, plus somewhat more places to drink afterwards. Both have 1 UNESCO-listed place within day-trip reach, so that is not the deciding factor.

What the numbers don't tell you

The value comparison between these two carries no information: it is a national price level and is identical for both by construction. The €122 a day beside it is one national estimate, not a measurement of either city, so neither is the cheaper trip on this evidence.

Both cities' strongest numbers depend on season. Bilbao's swimming edge rests on a narrow window, and much of its year is wet, with several months above 100mm. Seville's heritage and family counts measure what exists, not what is comfortable to reach at 36°C in July and August, when much of it is outdoors.

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
Bilbao
14
14
17
18
21
24
25
26
25
21
17
14
Seville
16
18
22
24
28
33
36
36
32
26
20
17
Sea temperature, °C
Bilbao
13
13
13
13
15
18
21
22
20
18
16
14
Seville
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
Bilbao
131
108
98
96
76
58
54
53
75
112
170
124
Seville
56
46
47
51
33
6
1
3
32
74
72
78
Daylight, hours per day
Bilbao
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Seville
10
11
12
13
14
15
15
14
13
11
10
10
Sunshine, hours per day
Bilbao
3
3
5
5
6
6
6
6
5
4
3
3
Seville
6
7
7
8
10
11
12
11
8
8
6
5

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Bilbao: 1991-2020 normals, Bilbao / Sondica (4.1 km from centre). Seville: 1991-2020 normals, Sevilla / San Pablo (8.1 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Bilbao is at its best from July to September: highs of 25-26°C and the sea at 21-22°C, and these are also its driest months. The wet season is heavy; November alone brings 170mm.

Seville suits April and May, with 24-28°C and rain falling to 33mm, and October works again once the heat breaks. Midsummer is almost rainless at 1-3mm but sits at 36°C, which rules it out for walking days. Winter stays mild and the wettest months there are still lighter than Bilbao's.

Getting there

Flying fromBilbaoSeville
BarcelonaBCN
1 h 15 m
€58-78
BIO · 5 km
1 h 35 m
€111-178
1 stop
SVQ · 9 km
MadridMAD
1 h 0 m
no fares
BIO · 5 km
1 h 10 m
no fares
SVQ · 9 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 45 m
€62-91
BIO · 5 km
2 h 35 m
no fares
SVQ · 9 km
PalmaPMI
1 h 25 m
no fares
BIO · 5 km
1 h 35 m
no fares
SVQ · 9 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 35 m
€102
BIO · 5 km
2 h 25 m
€99-133
1 stop
SVQ · 9 km
TenerifeTFS, TFN
3 h 10 m
no fares
BIO · 5 km
2 h 20 m
€126-171
SVQ · 9 km
ValenciaVLC
1 h 15 m
€60-79
BIO · 5 km
1 h 15 m
€50-96
SVQ · 9 km
AmsterdamAMS
2 h 0 m
€196-210
1 stop
BIO · 5 km
2 h 50 m
€180-230
1 stop
SVQ · 9 km
Las PalmasLPA
3 h 5 m
no fares
BIO · 5 km
2 h 15 m
no fares
SVQ · 9 km
MarrakechRAK
2 h 15 m
no fares
BIO · 5 km
1 h 30 m
no fares
SVQ · 9 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

MeasureBilbaoSeville
Official languageSpanishSpanish
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation19 m18 m
Main airportBilbao Airport (BIO)5 km from centre70 non-stop destinationsSeville Airport (SVQ)9 km from centre93 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureBilbaoSeville
City population351,124689,423
People per km²8,4404,896
Museums within 10 km1724
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Distinct cuisines in the centre5452
Swim season, months above 21 °C1 month–

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Bilbao or Seville 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). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

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.