VacationSelector
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle
People's Square (Narodni trg), Zadar
ZadarPeople's Square (Narodni trg)

Photos: Cardiff by Tevfik Teker, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Zadar by Böhringer Friedrich, CC BY-SA 2.5, cropped.

Cardiff or Zadar?

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
  • shopping
  • nightlife

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

Choose Zadar for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Zadar’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, Zadar 72: Zadar leads by 42 points.
Food & drink. Cardiff and Zadar are level on 45.
Culture & sights. Cardiff 58, Zadar 55: Cardiff leads by 3 points.
Nightlife. Cardiff 50, Zadar 38: Cardiff leads by 12 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cardiff 70, Zadar 82: Zadar leads by 12 points.
Day trips. Cardiff 72, Zadar 70: Cardiff leads by 2 points.
Good for families. Cardiff 58, Zadar 55: Cardiff leads by 3 points.
Getting around. Cardiff 66, Zadar 58: Cardiff leads by 8 points.
Shopping & style. Cardiff 50, Zadar 27: Cardiff leads by 23 points.
Affordability. Cardiff 46, Zadar 52: Zadar leads by 6 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cardiff 57, Zadar 28: Cardiff leads by 29 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cardiff 27, Zadar 35: Zadar leads by 8 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cardiff and Zadar.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Cardiff
52match

Wins on live music and the arts and shopping with your weighting.

Zadar
51match

Wins on beaches and nature and the outdoors 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

Zadar in July

31 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
29 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
24 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
CardiffZadar

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.

Zadar 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. Cardiff: 1991-2020 normals, Cardiff-Wales Airport (14.9 km from centre). Zadar: 1999-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Zadar / Zemunik (9.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCardiffZadar
Official languageEnglishCroatian
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Euro (EUR)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999112
Elevation41 m5 m
Main airportCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinationsZadar Airport (ZAD)10 km from centre66 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureCardiffZadar
City population383,53670,779
People per km²2,734-
Museums within 10 km91
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 Zadar 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.