Chicago or Philadelphia?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on beaches & swimming and sights concentration with your weighting.
Wins on museums & heritage and nature & day trips with your weighting.
What matters to you?
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.
The verdict
Choose Chicago if you want a compact centre you can walk, more places to eat and drink within it, and lake swimming in high summer, with 12 beaches nearby and the water reaching 23°C in August.
Choose Philadelphia if museums drive the trip: about twice as many as Chicago, plus more protected countryside within day-trip range and a slightly milder year, with January highs of 5°C.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Chicago leads by 53 points.53
| Chicago | Philadelphia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 53 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 1 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 12 | 1 |
| Coast distance | 10,000 km | 13 km |
| Water distance | 1 km | — |
Places to eat. Chicago leads by 4 points.4
| Chicago | Philadelphia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 81 | 77 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 2,147 | 1,714 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 37 | 35 |
Museums & heritage. Philadelphia leads by 14 points.14
| Chicago | Philadelphia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 46 | 60 |
| Museums within 10 km | 45 | 89 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 20 | 48 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 44 | 54 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 1 | 1 |
Nightlife. Chicago leads by 3 points.3
| Chicago | Philadelphia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 59 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 1,123 | 930 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 728 | 575 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 65 | 62 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 51 | 41 |
Nature & day trips. Philadelphia leads by 11 points.11
| Chicago | Philadelphia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 38 | 49 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 6 | 14 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 89 |
| Park area within 2 km | 118 hectares | 75 hectares |
Good for families. Chicago leads by 2 points.2
| Chicago | Philadelphia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 55 | 53 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 18 | 16 |
| Park area within 2 km | 118 hectares | 75 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 2 | 4 |
Sights concentration. Chicago leads by 16 points.16
| Chicago | Philadelphia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 70 | 54 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 217 | 88 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Chicago and Philadelphia are level on 43.
| Chicago | Philadelphia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 43 | 43 |
| Price level global | 100 | 100 |
| Daily budget | — | — |
Year-round weather. Philadelphia leads by 3 points.3
| Chicago | Philadelphia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 57 | 60 |
| Monthly daytime high | 0.2 °C to 29.4 °C | 5.2 °C to 31 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 54 mm to 121 mm | 69 mm to 112 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 0 |
Where they differ
Chicago has 12 beaches nearby against Philadelphia's 1, and a month of the year when the water reaches 21°C or more, which Philadelphia never does. Its centre is denser too: about twice as many notable places within walking distance, twice as much park space, and somewhat more restaurants and bars.
Philadelphia answers with about twice as many museums, and better protected countryside around it, 14% of the land against 6% around Chicago, plus 4 theme parks within reach to Chicago's 2.
Where they are alike
Families are served much the same way: a similar number of tourist attractions close to the centre in both, and theme parks within reach of each, so a week with children works either way.
The evenings are alike too. Both keep most of their bars and clubs near the centre, and the range of kitchens is similar. Summers match closely, with July the warmest month in each, at 29°C in Chicago and 31°C in Philadelphia.
Which traveller are you?
For a long weekend spent on foot, Chicago. It packs about twice as many notable places into its centre as Philadelphia, with more restaurants and bars in the same streets, so days need little planning.
Museum-led travellers should pick Philadelphia, which has roughly twice as many as Chicago, and it also has more protected land around it, 14% against 6%, if the trip includes days out of the city.
Families in summer split the difference: Chicago for swimming, with 12 beaches and August water at 23°C, plus more park space; Philadelphia for rides, with 4 theme parks within reach against Chicago's 2.
What the numbers don't tell you
No cost comparison is possible here. The value figure both cities carry is a national price level, identical for the two by construction, and the dataset holds no daily budget for either, so nothing in it tells you which trip costs more.
No weather station near Chicago reports sunshine hours, so that figure is missing rather than low, and its monthly picture rests on temperature, rainfall and sea temperature alone, leaving Philadelphia's 2480 hours a year with nothing to compare against. Chicago's beaches also flatter the place: 12 of them, but only one month with water at 21°C or more.
When should you go?
The figures behind each month. Each row is shaded against that destination's own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that measure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.
Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Chicago: 1991-2020 normals, Chicago Midway Airport (14.5 km from centre). Philadelphia: 1991-2020 normals, Philadelphia International Airport (11.3 km from centre).
Chicago is at its best from June to September, with highs of 25-29°C and the water at 23°C in August. September is the driest of that run at 85mm; May and June are the wettest months of its year, near 115-121mm.
Philadelphia peaks earlier, in May, at 24°C with 86mm, and holds a usable April at 18°C and November at 13°C, when Chicago sits at 15°C and 10°C. Its late summer is wetter, above 105mm from July to September.
Getting there
| Flying from | Chicago | Philadelphia |
|---|---|---|
| MinneapolisMSP, STP | 1 h 20 m no fares ORD · 25 km | 2 h 30 m no fares PHL · 11 km |
| AtlantaATL, PDK | 1 h 50 m €141-200 ORD · 25 km | 1 h 55 m €60-108 PHL · 11 km |
| HoustonIAH, HOU | 2 h 25 m €124-260 1 stop ORD · 25 km | 3 h 10 m no fares PHL · 11 km |
| BostonBOS, PSM | 2 h 20 m €220-252 ORD · 25 km | 1 h 10 m no fares PHL · 11 km |
| DetroitDTW, DET, YIP | 1 h 5 m no fares ORD · 25 km | 1 h 30 m no fares PHL · 11 km |
| DenverDEN, APA | 2 h 20 m €113-184 ORD · 25 km | 3 h 35 m no fares PHL · 11 km |
| TokyoHND, NRT | 12 h 35 m no fares ORD · 25 km | 13 h 30 m €989-1136 JFK · 140 km |
| Mexico CityMEX, NLU, TLC | 3 h 50 m €253 ORD · 25 km | 4 h 25 m no fares PHL · 11 km |
| DublinDUB | 7 h 35 m no fares ORD · 25 km | 6 h 50 m no fares PHL · 11 km |
| DohaDOH | 14 h 10 m no fares ORD · 25 km | 13 h 30 m no fares PHL · 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 2026-09 to 2026-10, 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 | Chicago | Philadelphia |
|---|---|---|
| Currency | US Dollar (USD) | US Dollar (USD) |
| Sockets | AB120 V, 60 Hz | AB120 V, 60 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC-6, UTC-5 in summer | UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer |
| Emergency number | 911 | 911 |
| Elevation | 179 m | 12 m |
| Main airport | Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)25 km from centre272 non-stop destinations | Philadelphia International Airport (PHL)11 km from centre128 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 13 days | 12 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Chicago | Philadelphia |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 2,746,388 | 1,603,797 |
| People per km² | 4,529 | 4,339 |
| Museums within 10 km | 43 | 54 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 1 | 1 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 87 | 75 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 1 month | – |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Chicago or Philadelphia somewhere new.