VacationSelector

Cologne or Macau?

Two destinations compared in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

The cathedral and Great St. Martin on the Rhine, Cologne
Cologne

Photo: Jörg Braukmann, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped

The Grand Lisboa above the Macau skyline, Macau
Macau

Photo: tian Jin, Pexels License

Your match

Cologne
✓ Best match
58
match

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

Macau
46
match

Wins on food and drink and beaches with your weighting.

What matters to you?

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.

Scoreboard

Our verdict on each category, scored 0 to 100 against fixed benchmark cities.

CologneMacau
Beaches & swimming. Macau leads by 10 points.10
Food & drink. Macau leads by 25 points.25
Culture & sights. Cologne leads by 5 points.5
Nightlife. Cologne leads by 26 points.26
Nature & outdoors. Cologne leads by 51 points.51
Day trips. Cologne leads by 28 points.28
Good for families. Cologne leads by 22 points.22
Getting around. Cologne leads by 14 points.14
Shopping & style. Macau leads by 1 points.1
Affordability. Cologne leads by 2 points.2
Live music & performing arts. Cologne leads by 32 points.32
Wellness & relaxation. Cologne leads by 10 points.10
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cologne and Macau.

When should you go?

Pick the month you can travel and see both cities side by side. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Climate figures for July
JulyCologneMacau
Daytime high25 °C32 °C
Night-time low16 °C26 °C
Rainfall in the month81 mm281 mm
Sunshine7 hours a day7 hours a day
Sea temperatureNo sea29 °C
Daylight16 hours a day13 hours a day

The whole year

Each row is shaded against that destination’s own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that figure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Cologne
6
7
12
16
20
23
25
25
21
15
10
7
Macau
19
19
22
25
29
31
32
32
31
29
25
20
Sea temperature, °C
Cologne
No coastline within reach
Macau
19
19
20
23
26
28
29
29
28
27
24
21
Rainfall, mm
Cologne
64
56
53
48
60
76
81
81
67
65
68
72
Macau
34
42
78
160
285
369
281
338
233
71
38
32
Daylight, hours per day
Cologne
9
10
12
14
16
16
16
15
13
11
9
8
Macau
11
11
12
13
13
14
13
13
12
12
11
11
Sunshine, hours per day
Cologne
2
2
4
6
7
7
7
6
5
3
2
1
Macau
4
3
3
3
4
5
7
6
6
6
5
5

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cologne: 1991-2020 normals, Köln-Stammheim (5.4 km from centre). Macau: 1991-2020 normals, Taipa (3.9 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromCologneMacau
IstanbulIST, SAW
3 h 0 m
€145-156
CGN · 15 km
10 h 5 m
no fares
HKG · 41 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 20 m
no fares
CGN · 15 km
12 h 0 m
€570-666
1 stop
HKG · 41 km
MunichMUC
1 h 10 m
no fares
CGN · 15 km
11 h 15 m
no fares
HKG · 41 km
ViennaVIE
1 h 35 m
€126-182
CGN · 15 km
10 h 50 m
no fares
SZX · 57 km
BarcelonaBCN
2 h 0 m
€77-159
CGN · 15 km
12 h 30 m
no fares
HKG · 41 km
MilanMXP, BGY, LIN
1 h 20 m
€81-121
CGN · 15 km
11 h 40 m
no fares
HKG · 41 km
RomeFCO, CIA
1 h 55 m
no fares
CGN · 15 km
11 h 35 m
no fares
HKG · 41 km
ManchesterMAN
1 h 30 m
no fares
CGN · 15 km
12 h 0 m
no fares
HKG · 41 km
ZurichZRH
1 h 10 m
€174-186
1 stop
CGN · 15 km
11 h 35 m
no fares
HKG · 41 km
Abu DhabiAUH
6 h 35 m
no fares
DUS · 41 km
7 h 45 m
€690-962
2 stops
HKG · 41 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

MeasureCologneMacau
Official languageGermanPortuguese, Cantonese, Standard Chinese
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Pataca (MOP)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzFGM220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+8
Emergency number112999
Elevation59 m22 m
Main airportCologne Bonn Airport (CGN)15 km from centre115 non-stop destinationsMacau International Airport (MFM)7 km from centre41 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days-

By the numbers

MeasureCologneMacau
City population1,024,621682,100
People per km²2,5305,916
Museums within 10 km4028
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km31
Swim season, months above 21 °C-8 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cologne or Macau somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate and flight figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-27. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.