Cairo or Edinburgh?
Two destinations compared in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Photo: Ricardo Liberato, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped

Photo: Carlos Delgado, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped
Your match
Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.
Wins on nature and the outdoors and getting around with your weighting.
What matters to you?
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.
Scoreboard
Our verdict on each category, scored 0 to 100 against fixed benchmark cities.
What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairo and Edinburgh.
When should you go?
Pick the month you can travel and see both cities side by side. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.
| July | Cairo | Edinburgh |
|---|---|---|
| Daytime high | 36 °C | 19 °C |
| Night-time low | 23 °C | 11 °C |
| Rainfall in the month | 0 mm | 65 mm |
| Sunshine | 12 hours a day | 5 hours a day |
| Sea temperature | No sea | 14 °C |
| Daylight | 14 hours a day | 17 hours a day |
The whole year
Each row is shaded against that destination’s own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that figure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.
Where the figures come from
Edinburgh's rainfall is measured 52 km from the centre, at Leuchars.
Edinburgh's sunshine is measured 52 km from the centre, at Leuchars.
Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cairo: 1991-2020 normals, Helwan (21.9 km from centre). Edinburgh: 1991-2020 normals, Edinburgh Airport (10 km from centre).
Getting there
| Flying from | Cairo | Edinburgh |
|---|---|---|
| MilanMXP, BGY, LIN | 3 h 45 m €147-173 CAI · 17 km | 2 h 20 m €75-101 1 stop EDI · 11 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 4 h 50 m €240-288 CAI · 17 km | 1 h 20 m €41-45 EDI · 11 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 2 h 10 m €154-167 CAI · 17 km | 4 h 0 m €201-242 1 stop EDI · 11 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 4 h 25 m €249-480 CAI · 17 km | 1 h 40 m €78-108 1 stop EDI · 11 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 11 h 15 m €624-1013 1 stop CAI · 17 km | 6 h 50 m no fares EDI · 11 km |
| PraguePRG | 3 h 45 m €271-316 1 stop CAI · 17 km | 2 h 15 m €135-214 1 stop EDI · 11 km |
| AntalyaAYT | 1 h 35 m €220-273 1 stop CAI · 17 km | 4 h 35 m €195-238 2 stops EDI · 11 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 3 h 10 m €280-302 CAI · 17 km | 2 h 55 m €99-141 1 stop EDI · 11 km |
| ViennaVIE | 3 h 25 m €263-340 CAI · 17 km | 2 h 35 m €150-240 1 stop EDI · 11 km |
| BeijingPEK, PKX | 9 h 30 m €644-746 1 stop CAI · 17 km | 10 h 0 m no fares EDI · 11 km |
The busiest departure cities for these two, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop to both. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Where both columns name the same airport it is one flight, and the difference between the two is the distance printed beside it. Typical return fares for 2026-10 to 2026-12, cached market data up to 7 days old. The figure is the middle half of the offers found, so a single price means they agreed and a range means they did not; for a typical route that middle half spans about a quarter of the median, and for the least settled routes rather more than the median itself.
Before you go
| Measure | Cairo | Edinburgh |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Arabic | English |
| Currency | Egyptian Pound (EGP) | Pound Sterling (GBP) |
| Sockets | CF220 V, 50 Hz | G230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Left |
| Time zone | UTC+2, UTC+3 in summer | UTC, UTC+1 in summer |
| Emergency number | Police 122, ambulance 123, fire 180 | 112 or 999 |
| Elevation | 23 m | 47 m |
| Main airport | Cairo International Airport (CAI)17 km from centre127 non-stop destinations | Edinburgh Airport (EDI)11 km from centre162 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 15 days | 10 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Cairo | Edinburgh |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 9,801,536 | 488,050 |
| People per km² | 18,564 | 1,884 |
| Museums within 10 km | 48 | 32 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 2 | 3 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | - | None |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cairo or Edinburgh somewhere new.