VacationSelector
Rozenhoedkaai and the Belfry, Bruges
BrugesRozenhoedkaai and the Belfry
The floating torii of Itsukushima at Miyajima, Hiroshima
HiroshimaThe floating torii of Itsukushima at Miyajima

Photos: Bruges by Michielverbeek, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Hiroshima by Guohua Song, Pexels License.

Bruges or Hiroshima?

Our verdict in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities, and the climate month by month, so you can choose for your trip.

Choose Bruges for

  • culture and sights
  • day trips
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Bruges’s own page.

Choose Hiroshima for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • prices
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Hiroshima’s own page.

Scoreboard

Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.

Beaches & swimming. Bruges 28, Hiroshima 30: Hiroshima leads by 2 points.
Food & drink. Bruges 56, Hiroshima 66: Hiroshima leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Bruges 75, Hiroshima 60: Bruges leads by 15 points.
Nightlife. Bruges 27, Hiroshima 45: Hiroshima leads by 18 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bruges 40, Hiroshima 62: Hiroshima leads by 22 points.
Day trips. Bruges 85, Hiroshima 80: Bruges leads by 5 points.
Good for families. Bruges 54, Hiroshima 60: Hiroshima leads by 6 points.
Getting around. Bruges 78, Hiroshima 74: Bruges leads by 4 points.
Shopping & style. Bruges 45, Hiroshima 52: Hiroshima leads by 7 points.
Affordability. Bruges 36, Hiroshima 58: Hiroshima leads by 22 points.
Live music & performing arts. Bruges 40, Hiroshima 38: Bruges leads by 2 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bruges 40, Hiroshima 50: Hiroshima leads by 10 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bruges and Hiroshima.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Bruges
50match

Wins on culture and sights and day trips with your weighting.

Hiroshima
Best match
56match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and prices with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Bruges in July

21 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
77 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
18 °Csea
16 hdaylight a day

Hiroshima in July

31 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
299 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
24 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
BrugesHiroshima

Where the figures come from

Bruges has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Bruges's sunshine is measured 37 km from the centre, at Vlissingen.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Bruges: 2009-2025 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Zeebrugge / Zeemanshaard (15.8 km from centre). Hiroshima: 1991-2020 normals, Hiroshima (1.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBrugesHiroshima
Official languageFrench, German, DutchJapanese
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Yen (JPY)
SocketsCE230 V, 50 HzAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the region
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+9
Emergency number112Police 110, fire 119
Elevation2 m3 m
Main airportBrussels Airport (BRU)94 km from centre191 non-stop destinationsHiroshima Airport (HIJ)43 km from centre10 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureBrugesHiroshima
City population118,5091,198,021
People per km²8401,324
Museums within 10 km3818
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km32
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone4 months

Where else could you go?

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

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Rainfall where no rain gauge is within 25 km is from the TerraClimate 1991-2020 climatology (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, Scientific Data), read at the city. 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.