VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The Oriental Pearl Tower and Shanghai Tower, Shanghai
ShanghaiThe Oriental Pearl Tower and Shanghai Tower

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Shanghai by xiquinhosilva, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Cairns or Shanghai?

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

  • nature and the outdoors
  • beaches

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

Choose Shanghai for

  • shopping
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Shanghai’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, Shanghai 10: Cairns leads by 52 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Shanghai 88: Shanghai leads by 48 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Shanghai 72: Shanghai leads by 50 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Shanghai 80: Shanghai leads by 38 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Shanghai 25: Cairns leads by 70 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Shanghai 90: Shanghai leads by 45 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Shanghai 80: Shanghai leads by 14 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Shanghai 85: Shanghai leads by 40 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Shanghai 82: Shanghai leads by 54 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Shanghai 55: Shanghai leads by 20 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Shanghai 66: Shanghai leads by 44 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Shanghai 55: Shanghai leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Shanghai.

Your match

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

Cairns
46match

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

Shanghai
Best match
66match

Wins on shopping and culture and sights 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

Shanghai in July

33 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
151 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
26 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsShanghai

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). Shanghai: 1991-2020 normals, Shanghai / Hongqiao (8.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsShanghai
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 m4 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsShanghai Pudong International Airport (PVG)33 km from centre207 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days6 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsShanghai
City population146,77824,870,895
People per km²3013,922
Museums within 10 km145
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months5 months

Where else could you go?

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