Chicago or Seattle?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on sights concentration and museums & heritage with your weighting.
Wins on beaches & swimming and year-round weather 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 dense centre you can cover on foot, with far more notable places within walking distance than Seattle, a deeper museum offering, more restaurants and bars, and a summer lake reaching 23°C.
Choose Seattle if you prefer mild weather, dry summers and far more beaches within reach, though the water stays cold enough that swimming is beside the point.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Seattle leads by 7 points.7
| Chicago | Seattle | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 53 | 60 |
| Swim season months | 1 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 12 | 100 |
| Coast distance | 10,000 km | 1 km |
| Water distance | 1 km | 1 km |
Places to eat. Chicago leads by 6 points.6
| Chicago | Seattle | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 81 | 75 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 2,147 | 1,460 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 37 | 35 |
Museums & heritage. Chicago leads by 10 points.10
| Chicago | Seattle | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 46 | 36 |
| Museums within 10 km | 45 | 28 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 20 | 17 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 44 | 61 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 1 | 0 |
Nightlife. Chicago leads by 5 points.5
| Chicago | Seattle | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 57 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 1,123 | 873 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 728 | 696 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 65 | 80 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 51 | 34 |
Nature & day trips. Seattle leads by 2 points.2
| Chicago | Seattle | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 38 | 40 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 6 | 9 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 80 |
| Park area within 2 km | 118 hectares | 63 hectares |
Good for families. Chicago leads by 9 points.9
| Chicago | Seattle | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 55 | 46 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 18 | 17 |
| Park area within 2 km | 118 hectares | 63 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 2 | 1 |
Sights concentration. Chicago leads by 18 points.18
| Chicago | Seattle | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 70 | 52 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 217 | 76 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Chicago and Seattle are level on 43.
| Chicago | Seattle | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 43 | 43 |
| Price level global | 100 | 100 |
| Daily budget | — | — |
Year-round weather. Seattle leads by 4 points.4
| Chicago | Seattle | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 57 | 61 |
| Monthly daytime high | 0.2 °C to 29.4 °C | 7.8 °C to 24.9 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 54 mm to 121 mm | 15 mm to 160 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 3 |
Where they differ
Chicago's centre holds about three times as many notable places within walking distance as Seattle's, and twice as many museums, plus 1 UNESCO-listed site within day-trip reach where Seattle has none. Families get more park space near the centre and 2 theme parks against Seattle's 1.
Seattle counters outdoors: 9% of the land around it is protected against 6% around Chicago, and far more beaches within reach. Its museums are fewer but sit tightly around the centre.
Where they are alike
Neither is a strong base for country trips. Around Seattle 9% of the land is protected, around Chicago 6%, so day trips are possible but modest in both, and the green space each has sits mostly inside the city.
Eating and evenings are close as well: a similar range of kitchens in both, and in each the drinking places cluster near the centre. Weather differs in shape more than quality, Chicago swinging 0-29°C across the year, Seattle holding 8-25°C.
Which traveller are you?
Museum-goers and city walkers should take Chicago. Its centre carries far more notable places within a short walk, a deeper museum offering, and 1 UNESCO-listed site within day-trip reach, so a long weekend needs little transport.
Anyone drawn to shoreline and open land is better served in Seattle: many more beaches within reach and a larger share of protected land around the city, though at 12°C the water is for walking beside, not swimming in.
Families lean Chicago: more park space near the centre, 2 theme parks against 1, a comparable set of attractions, and a summer lake at 23°C that children can actually get into.
What the numbers don't tell you
Value here is set by a national price level shared by both cities, not by anything either place does, so the value comparison between them carries no information. No daily budget exists for either, which means no cost comparison of any kind is possible.
Sunshine is not recorded near either city, so that side of the weather comparison is unmeasured and the monthly picture rests on temperature, rainfall and sea temperature alone. And Seattle's large count of beaches fronts water that holds at 12°C all year, while Chicago's swimming season amounts to a single month 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). Seattle: 1991-2020 normals, Seattle-Tacoma Airport (17.3 km from centre).
Chicago is best from June to September, when daytime highs run 25-29°C and the lake warms to 23°C at its late-summer peak, the only stretch here warm enough for swimming. Rain is steady through those months, roughly 85-121mm, so expect showers.
Seattle's window is narrower and drier: July and August bring highs of 25°C with just 15-25mm of rain, far less than Chicago at the same time. The water stays at 12°C year-round. From November to January Seattle turns wet, up to 160mm a month.
Getting there
| Flying from | Chicago | Seattle |
|---|---|---|
| Los AngelesLAX, BUR, SNA, VNY | 4 h 0 m €195-265 1 stop ORD · 25 km | 2 h 30 m €111-203 SEA · 18 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 2 h 5 m €201-231 ORD · 25 km | 5 h 15 m €300-424 SEA · 18 km |
| DenverDEN, APA | 2 h 20 m €113-184 ORD · 25 km | 2 h 35 m no fares SEA · 18 km |
| PhoenixPHX, AZA | 3 h 25 m €182-307 1 stop ORD · 25 km | 2 h 45 m no fares SEA · 18 km |
| DallasDFW, DAL, AFW | 2 h 10 m €187-223 ORD · 25 km | 3 h 50 m €204-286 1 stop SEA · 18 km |
| WashingtonIAD, DCA | 1 h 45 m €109-226 ORD · 25 km | 5 h 0 m no fares SEA · 18 km |
| TokyoHND, NRT | 12 h 35 m no fares ORD · 25 km | 9 h 45 m no fares SEA · 18 km |
| GuadalajaraGDL | 3 h 55 m no fares ORD · 25 km | 4 h 45 m no fares SEA · 18 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 8 h 10 m no fares ORD · 25 km | 9 h 45 m no fares SEA · 18 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 14 h 20 m no fares ORD · 25 km | 14 h 40 m €1,006-1077 2 stops SEA · 18 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 2026-08 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 | Seattle |
|---|---|---|
| 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-8, UTC-7 in summer |
| Emergency number | 911 | 911 |
| Elevation | 179 m | 40 m |
| Main airport | Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)25 km from centre272 non-stop destinations | Seattle–Tacoma International Airport (SEA)18 km from centre135 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 13 days | 11 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Chicago | Seattle |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 2,746,388 | 737,015 |
| People per km² | 4,529 | 1,996 |
| Museums within 10 km | 43 | 27 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 1 | 0 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 87 | 78 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 1 month | None |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Chicago or Seattle somewhere new.