VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The Bell Tower of Xi'an under a blue sky, Xi'an
Xi'anThe Bell Tower of Xi'an under a blue sky

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Xi'an by xiquinhosilva, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Cairns or Xi'an?

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 Xi'an for

  • culture and sights
  • prices
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Xi'an’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, Xi'an 4: Cairns leads by 58 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Xi'an 70: Xi'an leads by 30 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Xi'an 81: Xi'an leads by 59 points.
Nightlife. Cairns and Xi'an are level on 42.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Xi'an 62: Cairns leads by 33 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Xi'an 80: Xi'an leads by 35 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Xi'an 48: Cairns leads by 18 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Xi'an 66: Xi'an leads by 21 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Xi'an 50: Xi'an leads by 22 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Xi'an 80: Xi'an leads by 45 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Xi'an 40: Xi'an leads by 18 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Xi'an 40: Cairns leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Xi'an.

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.

Xi'an
Best match
55match

Wins on culture and sights 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

Xi'an in July

33 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
96 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsXi'an

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). Xi'an: 1991-2020 normals, Xi'An (4.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsXi'an
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 m405 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsXi'an Xianyang International Airport (XIY)26 km from centre178 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days6 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsXi'an
City population146,77812,952,907
People per km²3011,283
Museums within 10 km19
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km12
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 Xi'an 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.