Dubrovnik or Kotor?
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 nature & day trips and value for money 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 Dubrovnik if you want the sights, museums and restaurants packed close enough to walk between, the wider choice of bars, and midsummer heat that tops out near 29°C.
Choose Kotor if you are heading for the countryside around the town, where 10% of the land is protected, prefer quiet evenings, and do not mind summer heat reaching 33°C.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Dubrovnik and Kotor are level on 77.
| Dubrovnik | Kotor | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 77 | 77 |
| Swim season months | 5 | 5 |
| Beaches 10 km | 43 | 50 |
| Coast distance | 0 km | 0 km |
| Water distance | 0 km | 0 km |
Places to eat. Dubrovnik leads by 12 points.12
| Dubrovnik | Kotor | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 38 | 26 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 206 | 71 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 18 | 19 |
Museums & heritage. Dubrovnik leads by 21 points.21
| Dubrovnik | Kotor | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 49 | 28 |
| Museums within 10 km | 18 | 7 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 17 | 3 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 94 | 43 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 3 | 3 |
Nightlife. Dubrovnik leads by 16 points.16
| Dubrovnik | Kotor | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 20 | 4 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 128 | 46 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 110 | 38 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 86 | 83 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 13 | 3 |
Nature & day trips. Kotor leads by 10 points.10
| Dubrovnik | Kotor | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 5 | 15 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 4 | 10 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 4 | 5 |
| Land share of disc % | 51 | 66 |
| Park area within 2 km | 6 hectares | 2 hectares |
Good for families. Dubrovnik leads by 12 points.12
| Dubrovnik | Kotor | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 21 | 9 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 12 | 8 |
| Park area within 2 km | 6 hectares | 2 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 1 | 0 |
Sights concentration. Dubrovnik leads by 23 points.23
| Dubrovnik | Kotor | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 44 | 21 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 48 | 13 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Kotor leads by 7 points.7
| Dubrovnik | Kotor | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 80 | 87 |
| Price level global | 48.5 | 38.9 |
| Daily budget | €138 | €95 |
Year-round weather. Dubrovnik leads by 4 points.4
| Dubrovnik | Kotor | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 65 | 61 |
| Monthly daytime high | 11 °C to 29.1 °C | 10.5 °C to 33.2 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 54 mm to 198 mm | 38 mm to 256 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 1 |
Where they differ
Dubrovnik packs about three times as many notable places within walking distance of the centre, and about three times as many museums. There are far more restaurants near the centre, and evenings offer more: more places to drink and many more nightclubs.
Kotor's edge is what surrounds it: 10% of the land nearby is protected, against 4% around Dubrovnik. It also runs warmer through the year, reaching 33°C at the height of summer. On price, Montenegro's national estimate is €95 a day against Croatia's €138.
Where they are alike
Swimming is the one thing they match on. The sea is 0km from both centres, Kotor has 50 beaches nearby and Dubrovnik 43, and in both the water reaches 21°C or more through the warmer half of the year.
Sunshine and price sit close too. Both record around 2,410 hours of sun a year, and their price levels come from national estimates rather than city measurements, with neither country's figure a high one.
Which traveller are you?
If you are here for museums, old streets and a choice of tables in the evening, Dubrovnik is the stronger base: more museums, more notable places within walking distance and more restaurants near the centre.
Walkers and anyone planning days out of town will do better from Kotor, where 10% of the surrounding land is protected against 4% around Dubrovnik, though Dubrovnik keeps more park space close to the centre.
Families lean to Dubrovnik: more tourist attractions near the centre, more park space and 1 theme park within reach, where Kotor has none. Both put the sea 0km from the centre, at 26°C at its warmest.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures are national. €138 and €95 describe price levels for restaurants and hotels across Croatia and Montenegro, not what either town charges. A small walled town that draws heavy visitor numbers can sit well above its country's average, and that gap can be larger than the gap between the two national figures, so this is not evidence that one trip costs more.
The strongest months in both are the warm ones, which are also when the beaches are busiest, and the warm sea continues into an autumn where monthly rain passes 140mm. Kotor's warmer summer reads as an advantage until 33°C arrives with it.
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. Dubrovnik: 1999-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Dubrovnik / Cilipi (15.3 km from centre). Kotor: 1991-2020 normals, Podgorica / Golubovci (39.9 km from centre).
Dubrovnik's best run is June to August, with highs of 26-29°C and the year's driest month at 54mm. Autumn stays drier there than in Kotor.
Kotor is the better call in May, when highs reach 24°C and rain has fallen to 88mm, and again in September at 27°C. Its autumn is heavier, though, with November above 250mm, and midsummer highs of 33°C make the peak weeks harder work than on the Croatian side.
Getting there
| Flying from | Dubrovnik | Kotor |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 2 h 40 m no fares DBV · 16 km | 2 h 45 m €246-282 1 stop TIV · 5 km |
| BelgradeBEG | 1 h 0 m €108-150 TIV · 57 km | 1 h 0 m €108-150 TIV · 5 km |
| ViennaVIE | 1 h 25 m €66-134 DBV · 16 km | 1 h 30 m €179-223 TGD · 40 km |
| DublinDUB | 3 h 15 m €135-178 2 stops DBV · 16 km | 3 h 15 m €135-178 2 stops DBV · 44 km |
| ZagrebZAG | 1 h 10 m no fares DBV · 16 km | 1 h 10 m no fares TGD · 40 km |
| Tel Aviv YafoTLV | 2 h 50 m €274-389 TIV · 57 km | 2 h 50 m €274-389 TIV · 5 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 2 h 0 m €181-222 1 stop DBV · 16 km | 2 h 0 m €181-222 1 stop DBV · 44 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 15 m €55-130 DBV · 16 km | 1 h 15 m €55-130 DBV · 44 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 9 h 10 m no fares DBV · 16 km | 9 h 10 m no fares DBV · 44 km |
| AlmatyALA | 6 h 5 m €370-455 3 stops TGD · 99 km | 6 h 5 m €370-455 3 stops TGD · 40 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 | Dubrovnik | Kotor |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Croatian | Montenegrin |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CF230 V, 50 Hz | CF230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 | 112 |
| Elevation | 10 m | 10 m |
| Main airport | Dubrovnik Ruđer Bošković Airport (DBV)16 km from centre74 non-stop destinations | Tivat Airport (TIV)5 km from centre41 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 14 days | – |
By the numbers
| Measure | Dubrovnik | Kotor |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 41,562 | 562 |
| Museums within 10 km | 7 | 3 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 3 | 3 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 32 | 27 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 5 months | 5 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Dubrovnik or Kotor somewhere new.