VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The Anshun Bridge over the Jin River, Chengdu
ChengduThe Anshun Bridge over the Jin River

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Chengdu by TurnOnTheNight, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Cairns or Chengdu?

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 Cairns for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • families

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

Choose Chengdu for

  • food and drink
  • prices
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Chengdu’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. Cairns 62, Chengdu 5: Cairns leads by 57 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Chengdu 86: Chengdu leads by 46 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Chengdu 60: Chengdu leads by 38 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Chengdu 68: Chengdu leads by 26 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Chengdu 68: Cairns leads by 27 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Chengdu 80: Chengdu leads by 35 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Chengdu 65: Cairns leads by 1 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Chengdu 74: Chengdu leads by 29 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Chengdu 64: Chengdu leads by 36 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Chengdu 80: Chengdu leads by 45 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Chengdu 50: Chengdu leads by 28 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Chengdu 58: Chengdu leads by 13 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Chengdu.

Your match

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

Cairns
46match

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

Chengdu
Best match
63match

Wins on food and drink 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.

Cairns in July

24 °Cdaytime high
20 °Cnight-time low
30 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
24 °Csea
11 hdaylight a day

Chengdu in July

31 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
177 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsChengdu

Where the figures come from

Cairns's temperatures are measured 27 km from the centre, at Green Island Aws.

Cairns 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.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cairns: 1993-2010 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Green Island Aws (27 km from centre). Chengdu: 1991-2020 normals, Chengdu (4.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsChengdu
Official languageEnglishPutonghua
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Yuan Renminbi (CNY)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzACI220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC+8
Emergency number000Police 110, ambulance 120, fire 119
Elevation7 m500 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsChengdu Shuangliu International Airport (CTU)16 km from centre77 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days6 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsChengdu
City population146,77820,937,757
People per km²3011,456
Museums within 10 km110
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cairns or Chengdu 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). 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.

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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.