VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
Colourful shopfronts in the city centre, Cork
CorkColourful shopfronts in the city centre

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Cork by Selim Karadayı, Pexels License.

Cairns or Cork?

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
  • wellness

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

Choose Cork for

  • day trips
  • live music and the arts
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Cork’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, Cork 25: Cairns leads by 37 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Cork 58: Cork leads by 18 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Cork 40: Cork leads by 18 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Cork 40: Cairns leads by 2 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Cork 62: Cairns leads by 33 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Cork 68: Cork leads by 23 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Cork 50: Cairns leads by 16 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Cork 58: Cork leads by 13 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Cork 40: Cork leads by 12 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Cork 33: Cairns leads by 2 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Cork 45: Cork leads by 23 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Cork 22: Cairns leads by 23 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Cork.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Cairns
46match

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

Cork
45match

Wins on day trips and live music and the arts 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

Cork in July

19 °Cdaytime high
12 °Cnight-time low
86 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
16 °Csea
16 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsCork

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.

Cork's station stands 153 m above the city centre, so the centre is likely a little warmer than the figures say.

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). Cork: 1991-2020 normals, Cork Airport (5.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsCork
Official languageEnglishEnglish, Irish
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Euro (EUR)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzG230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC+10UTC, UTC+1 in summer
Emergency number000112
Elevation7 m0 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsCork International Airport (ORK)7 km from centre47 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsCork
City population146,778222,333
People per km²3015,961
Museums within 10 km15
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cairns or Cork 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.