VacationSelector
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle
The Oriental Pearl Tower and Shanghai Tower, Shanghai
ShanghaiThe Oriental Pearl Tower and Shanghai Tower

Photos: Cardiff by Tevfik Teker, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Shanghai by xiquinhosilva, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Cardiff 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 Cardiff for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • beaches

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

Choose Shanghai for

  • food and drink
  • shopping
  • nightlife

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. Cardiff 30, Shanghai 10: Cardiff leads by 20 points.
Food & drink. Cardiff 45, Shanghai 88: Shanghai leads by 43 points.
Culture & sights. Cardiff 58, Shanghai 72: Shanghai leads by 14 points.
Nightlife. Cardiff 50, Shanghai 80: Shanghai leads by 30 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cardiff 70, Shanghai 25: Cardiff leads by 45 points.
Day trips. Cardiff 72, Shanghai 90: Shanghai leads by 18 points.
Good for families. Cardiff 58, Shanghai 80: Shanghai leads by 22 points.
Getting around. Cardiff 66, Shanghai 85: Shanghai leads by 19 points.
Shopping & style. Cardiff 50, Shanghai 82: Shanghai leads by 32 points.
Affordability. Cardiff 46, Shanghai 55: Shanghai leads by 9 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cardiff 57, Shanghai 66: Shanghai leads by 9 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cardiff 27, Shanghai 55: Shanghai leads by 28 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cardiff and Shanghai.

Your match

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

Cardiff
52match

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

Shanghai
Best match
66match

Wins on food and drink and shopping 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

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

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
CardiffShanghai

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

Before you go

MeasureCardiffShanghai
Official languageEnglishPutonghua
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Yuan Renminbi (CNY)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzACI220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC+8
Emergency number112 or 999Police 110, ambulance 120, fire 119
Elevation41 m4 m
Main airportCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinationsShanghai Pudong International Airport (PVG)33 km from centre207 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days6 days

By the numbers

MeasureCardiffShanghai
City population383,53624,870,895
People per km²2,7343,922
Museums within 10 km945
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cardiff 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.