VacationSelector
The Scott Monument and Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh
EdinburghThe Scott Monument and Princes Street Gardens
The floating torii of Itsukushima at Miyajima, Hiroshima
HiroshimaThe floating torii of Itsukushima at Miyajima

Photos: Edinburgh by Carlos Delgado, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Hiroshima by Guohua Song, Pexels License.

Edinburgh or Hiroshima?

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 Edinburgh for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Hiroshima for

  • prices
  • wellness
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Hiroshima’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. Edinburgh 22, Hiroshima 30: Hiroshima leads by 8 points.
Food & drink. Edinburgh 53, Hiroshima 66: Hiroshima leads by 13 points.
Culture & sights. Edinburgh 75, Hiroshima 60: Edinburgh leads by 15 points.
Nightlife. Edinburgh 50, Hiroshima 45: Edinburgh leads by 5 points.
Nature & outdoors. Edinburgh 75, Hiroshima 62: Edinburgh leads by 13 points.
Day trips. Edinburgh 75, Hiroshima 80: Hiroshima leads by 5 points.
Good for families. Edinburgh 62, Hiroshima 60: Edinburgh leads by 2 points.
Getting around. Edinburgh and Hiroshima are level on 74.
Shopping & style. Edinburgh 50, Hiroshima 52: Hiroshima leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Edinburgh 30, Hiroshima 58: Hiroshima leads by 28 points.
Live music & performing arts. Edinburgh 72, Hiroshima 38: Edinburgh leads by 34 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Edinburgh 34, Hiroshima 50: Hiroshima leads by 16 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Edinburgh and Hiroshima.

Your match

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

Too close to call, level with your weighting

Edinburgh
56match

Wins on live music and the arts and culture and sights with your weighting.

Hiroshima
56match

Wins on prices and wellness with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Edinburgh in July

19 °Cdaytime high
11 °Cnight-time low
66 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
14 °Csea
17 hdaylight a day

Hiroshima in July

31 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
299 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
24 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
EdinburghHiroshima

Where the figures come from

Edinburgh 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.

Edinburgh's sunshine is measured 52 km from the centre, at Leuchars.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Edinburgh: 1991-2020 normals, Edinburgh Airport (10 km from centre). Hiroshima: 1991-2020 normals, Hiroshima (1.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureEdinburghHiroshima
Official languageEnglishJapanese
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Yen (JPY)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the region
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC+9
Emergency number112 or 999Police 110, fire 119
Elevation47 m3 m
Main airportEdinburgh Airport (EDI)11 km from centre163 non-stop destinationsHiroshima Airport (HIJ)43 km from centre10 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureEdinburghHiroshima
City population488,0501,198,021
People per km²1,8841,324
Museums within 10 km3218
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km32
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone4 months

Where else could you go?

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

Browse every destination

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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.