VacationSelector
The white medina above the harbour walls, Essaouira
EssaouiraThe white medina above the harbour walls
The floating torii of Itsukushima at Miyajima, Hiroshima
HiroshimaThe floating torii of Itsukushima at Miyajima

Photos: Essaouira by Manel Cusido, Pexels License; Hiroshima by Guohua Song, Pexels License.

Essaouira 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 Essaouira for

  • beaches
  • prices
  • wellness

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

Choose Hiroshima for

  • day trips
  • nightlife
  • 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. Essaouira 47, Hiroshima 30: Essaouira leads by 17 points.
Food & drink. Essaouira 44, Hiroshima 66: Hiroshima leads by 22 points.
Culture & sights. Essaouira 48, Hiroshima 60: Hiroshima leads by 12 points.
Nightlife. Essaouira 14, Hiroshima 45: Hiroshima leads by 31 points.
Nature & outdoors. Essaouira 57, Hiroshima 62: Hiroshima leads by 5 points.
Day trips. Essaouira 17, Hiroshima 80: Hiroshima leads by 63 points.
Good for families. Essaouira 42, Hiroshima 60: Hiroshima leads by 18 points.
Getting around. Essaouira 58, Hiroshima 74: Hiroshima leads by 16 points.
Shopping & style. Essaouira 44, Hiroshima 52: Hiroshima leads by 8 points.
Affordability. Essaouira 74, Hiroshima 58: Essaouira leads by 16 points.
Live music & performing arts. Essaouira 28, Hiroshima 38: Hiroshima leads by 10 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Essaouira 66, Hiroshima 50: Essaouira leads by 16 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Essaouira and Hiroshima.

Your match

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

Essaouira
45match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

Hiroshima
Best match
56match

Wins on day trips and nightlife with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Essaouira in July

22 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
20 °Csea
14 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
EssaouiraHiroshima

Where the figures come from

Essaouira 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. Essaouira: 1991-2020 normals, Essaouira (1.4 km from centre). Hiroshima: 1991-2020 normals, Hiroshima (1.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureEssaouiraHiroshima
Official languageArabic, Standard Moroccan TamazightJapanese
CurrencyMoroccan Dirham (MAD)Yen (JPY)
SocketsCE50 HzAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the region
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+1UTC+9
Emergency numberPolice 19/112, ambulance 15, fire 15Police 110, fire 119
Elevation11 m3 m
Main airportEssaouira-Mogador Airport (ESU)15 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsHiroshima Airport (HIJ)43 km from centre10 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureEssaouiraHiroshima
City population82,9621,198,021
People per km²16,5921,324
Museums within 10 km218
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km12
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 Essaouira 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). 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.