VacationSelector
Skiers at the foot of the slopes in the village, Copper Mountain
Copper MountainSkiers at the foot of the slopes in the village
The Johannesburg skyline and the Hillbrow Tower, Johannesburg
JohannesburgThe Johannesburg skyline and the Hillbrow Tower

Photos: Copper Mountain by SparkFunElectronics, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Johannesburg by K, Pexels License.

Copper Mountain or Johannesburg?

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 Copper Mountain for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • getting around
  • families

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

Choose Johannesburg for

  • prices
  • culture and sights
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Johannesburg’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. Copper Mountain 3, Johannesburg 5: Johannesburg leads by 2 points.
Food & drink. Copper Mountain 20, Johannesburg 58: Johannesburg leads by 38 points.
Culture & sights. Copper Mountain 4, Johannesburg 56: Johannesburg leads by 52 points.
Nightlife. Copper Mountain 12, Johannesburg 62: Johannesburg leads by 50 points.
Nature & outdoors. Copper Mountain 90, Johannesburg 55: Copper Mountain leads by 35 points.
Day trips. Copper Mountain 55, Johannesburg 52: Copper Mountain leads by 3 points.
Good for families. Copper Mountain 62, Johannesburg 42: Copper Mountain leads by 20 points.
Getting around. Copper Mountain 48, Johannesburg 18: Copper Mountain leads by 30 points.
Shopping & style. Copper Mountain 8, Johannesburg 58: Johannesburg leads by 50 points.
Affordability. Copper Mountain 18, Johannesburg 72: Johannesburg leads by 54 points.
Live music & performing arts. Copper Mountain 8, Johannesburg 55: Johannesburg leads by 47 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Copper Mountain and Johannesburg are level on 28.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Copper Mountain and Johannesburg.

Your match

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

Copper Mountain
30match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and getting around with your weighting.

Johannesburg
Best match
47match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Copper Mountain in July

21 °Cdaytime high
5 °Cnight-time low
41 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
15 hdaylight a day

Johannesburg in July

19 °Cdaytime high
4 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
11 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
Copper MountainJohannesburg

Where the figures come from

Copper Mountain's temperatures are measured 35 km from the centre, at Leadville / Stringtown.

Copper Mountain 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. Copper Mountain: 2006-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Leadville / Stringtown (35.2 km from centre). Johannesburg: 2005-2019 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Johannesburg B / Roosevelt Park (7.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCopper MountainJohannesburg
Official language-English, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign Language
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Rand (ZAR)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzCMN230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-7, UTC-6 in summerUTC+2
Emergency number911112
Elevation2,955 m1,753 m
Main airportDenver International Airport (DEN)132 km from centre231 non-stop destinationsO.R. Tambo International Airport (JNB)22 km from centre83 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureCopper MountainJohannesburg
City population6504,803,262
People per km²82,922
Museums within 10 km014
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km02

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Copper Mountain or Johannesburg somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national 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. 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. 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.