VacationSelector
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle
The floating torii of Itsukushima at Miyajima, Hiroshima
HiroshimaThe floating torii of Itsukushima at Miyajima

Photos: Cardiff by Tevfik Teker, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Hiroshima by Guohua Song, Pexels License.

Cardiff or Hiroshima?

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 Cardiff for

  • live music and the arts
  • nature and the outdoors
  • nightlife

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

Choose Hiroshima for

  • wellness
  • food and drink
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Hiroshima’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. Cardiff and Hiroshima are level on 30.
Food & drink. Cardiff 45, Hiroshima 66: Hiroshima leads by 21 points.
Culture & sights. Cardiff 58, Hiroshima 60: Hiroshima leads by 2 points.
Nightlife. Cardiff 50, Hiroshima 45: Cardiff leads by 5 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cardiff 70, Hiroshima 62: Cardiff leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Cardiff 72, Hiroshima 80: Hiroshima leads by 8 points.
Good for families. Cardiff 58, Hiroshima 60: Hiroshima leads by 2 points.
Getting around. Cardiff 66, Hiroshima 74: Hiroshima leads by 8 points.
Shopping & style. Cardiff 50, Hiroshima 52: Hiroshima leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Cardiff 46, Hiroshima 58: Hiroshima leads by 12 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cardiff 57, Hiroshima 38: Cardiff leads by 19 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cardiff 27, Hiroshima 50: Hiroshima leads by 23 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cardiff and Hiroshima.

Your match

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

Cardiff
52match

Wins on live music and the arts and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Hiroshima
Best match
56match

Wins on wellness and food and drink with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Cardiff in July

20 °Cdaytime high
13 °Cnight-time low
83 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
17 °Csea
16 hdaylight a day

Hiroshima in July

31 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
299 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
24 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
CardiffHiroshima

Where the figures come from

Cardiff 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.

Cardiff's sunshine is measured 83 km from the centre, at Lyneham.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cardiff: 1991-2020 normals, Cardiff-Wales Airport (14.9 km from centre). Hiroshima: 1991-2020 normals, Hiroshima (1.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCardiffHiroshima
Official languageEnglishJapanese
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Yen (JPY)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the region
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC+9
Emergency number112 or 999Police 110, fire 119
Elevation41 m3 m
Main airportCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinationsHiroshima Airport (HIJ)43 km from centre10 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureCardiffHiroshima
City population383,5361,198,021
People per km²2,7341,324
Museums within 10 km918
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km12
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone4 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cardiff or Hiroshima 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.