Copenhagen or Reykjavik?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on nightlife and good for families with your weighting.
Wins on nature & day trips and beaches & swimming 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 Copenhagen if the point of the trip is the city itself: bars and clubs, more museums, and a centre where the notable places sit within walking distance, plus warmer summers with July highs of 23°C.
Choose Reykjavik if you would rather be outside the city: a far larger share of protected land around it, more beaches within reach, and little need for nightlife or a dense centre.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Reykjavik leads by 6 points.6
| Copenhagen | Reykjavik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 54 | 60 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 17 | 33 |
| Coast distance | 1 km | 0 km |
| Water distance | 1 km | 0 km |
Places to eat. Copenhagen leads by 24 points.24
| Copenhagen | Reykjavik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 73 | 49 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 1,183 | 261 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 37 | 29 |
Museums & heritage. Copenhagen leads by 25 points.25
| Copenhagen | Reykjavik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 75 | 50 |
| Museums within 10 km | 83 | 34 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 51 | 23 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 61 | 68 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 5 | 1 |
Nightlife. Copenhagen leads by 40 points.40
| Copenhagen | Reykjavik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 67 | 27 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 1,384 | 192 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 806 | 166 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 58 | 86 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 64 | 10 |
Nature & day trips. Reykjavik leads by 9 points.9
| Copenhagen | Reykjavik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 50 | 59 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 5 | 16 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 39 | 56 |
| Park area within 2 km | 138 hectares | 28 hectares |
Good for families. Copenhagen leads by 29 points.29
| Copenhagen | Reykjavik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 71 | 42 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 54 | 21 |
| Park area within 2 km | 138 hectares | 28 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 2 | 1 |
Sights concentration. Copenhagen leads by 26 points.26
| Copenhagen | Reykjavik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 74 | 48 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 273 | 61 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Copenhagen leads by 11 points.11
| Copenhagen | Reykjavik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 52 | 41 |
| Price level global | 87.8 | 102.8 |
| Daily budget | €214 | €243 |
Year-round weather. Copenhagen leads by 18 points.18
| Copenhagen | Reykjavik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 55 | 37 |
| Monthly daytime high | 3.6 °C to 22.7 °C | 3.2 °C to 14.9 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 28 mm to 74 mm | 41 mm to 97 mm |
| Dry months | 3 | 0 |
Where they differ
Copenhagen has many times as many bars and nightclubs, and many more notable places within walking distance of the centre. It also has about three times as many tourist attractions near the centre, 2 theme parks against Reykjavik's 1, more museums, and 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against 1.
Reykjavik leads outdoors: 16% of the land around it is protected against 5% around Copenhagen, and 33 beaches nearby against 17, with the sea at the centre rather than a short way out.
Where they are alike
Both sit on the water, 0km from Reykjavik's centre and 1km from Copenhagen's, with beaches in reach of each. Neither is a swimming destination in the usual sense: neither has a month with sea at 21°C or more, and Copenhagen's water peaks at 18°C.
They are also fairly close on countryside and on cost. Both have protected land and open country within day-trip range, and the national price estimates for Denmark and Iceland sit in a similar range rather than far apart.
Which traveller are you?
A couple after a city break with late evenings: Copenhagen, with many times as many bars and clubs, and a centre dense enough that museums, places to eat and the walk between them fill a weekend.
Families with children: Copenhagen again, with about three times as many tourist attractions near the centre, 2 theme parks within reach against 1, and much more park space close to the middle.
Walkers and landscape photographers: Reykjavik, where 16% of the surrounding land is protected and 33 beaches lie nearby, provided summer highs of 15°C and regular rain suit the plan rather than spoil it.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €214 for Denmark and €243 for Iceland, are national price levels for restaurants and hotels rather than measurements of either city. A capital can sit well above its own country average, by more than the gap between these two, so they cannot tell you which city costs more.
Reykjavik's larger count of beaches does not mean swimming weather: its sea peaks at 11°C and neither city reaches a month at 21°C or more. And no station near Copenhagen records sunshine hours, so that figure is missing rather than low, and the monthly picture there rests on temperature, rainfall and sea temperature alone.
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. Copenhagen: 1991-2020 normals, Koebenhavn / Landbohoejskolen (2.4 km from centre). Reykjavik: 1991-2020 normals, Reykjavik (2.3 km from centre).
Copenhagen is at its best in July and August, when highs reach 23°C and the sea is at its warmest, 18°C. August is also the wettest month at 74mm, so June trades a little warmth for drier days. April is the driest at 28mm, better for walking than for swimming.
Reykjavik's warm window is narrow: June and July bring highs of 13-15°C and the year's lightest rain, 41-50mm. Through autumn and winter rain runs 80-97mm a month.
Getting there
| Flying from | Copenhagen | Reykjavik |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 50 m €55-95 CPH · 8 km | 2 h 55 m €245-283 1 stop KEF · 37 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 25 m €167-221 CPH · 8 km | 3 h 5 m €293-407 2 stops KEF · 37 km |
| OsloOSL, TRF | 1 h 15 m no fares CPH · 8 km | 2 h 45 m no fares KEF · 37 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 50 m €70-135 CPH · 8 km | 3 h 20 m €247-346 1 stop KEF · 37 km |
| StockholmARN, BMA, NYO, VST | 1 h 20 m €90-98 1 stop CPH · 8 km | 3 h 10 m €174-231 1 stop KEF · 37 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 7 h 55 m €460-501 1 stop CPH · 8 km | 5 h 35 m €389-592 KEF · 37 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 1 h 30 m €153-210 1 stop CPH · 8 km | 3 h 30 m €313-393 2 stops KEF · 37 km |
| HelsinkiHEL | 1 h 45 m €143-174 CPH · 8 km | 3 h 35 m €268-383 2 stops KEF · 37 km |
| MilanMXP, BGY, LIN | 2 h 0 m €78-118 CPH · 8 km | 4 h 0 m €160-192 KEF · 37 km |
| BeijingPEK, PKX | 9 h 10 m no fares CPH · 8 km | 10 h 0 m no fares KEF · 37 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 | Copenhagen | Reykjavik |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Danish | Icelandic |
| Currency | Danish Krone (DKK) | Iceland Krona (ISK) |
| Sockets | CEFK230 V, 50 Hz | CF230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer | UTC |
| Emergency number | 112 | 112 |
| Elevation | 14 m | 8 m |
| Main airport | Copenhagen Kastrup Airport (CPH)8 km from centre144 non-stop destinations | Keflavik International Airport (KEF)37 km from centre88 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 14 days | 16 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Copenhagen | Reykjavik |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 667,099 | 138,772 |
| People per km² | 7,339 | 569 |
| Museums within 10 km | 72 | 23 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 5 | 1 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 82 | 42 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | None | None |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Copenhagen or Reykjavik somewhere new.