Photos: Galle by Francisco Anzola, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Santa Fe by dconvertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.
Galle or Santa Fe?
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 Santa Fe for
- live music and the arts
- shopping
- day trips
What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Fe’s own page.
Scoreboard
Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.
What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Galle and Santa Fe.
Your match
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.
Too close to call, 1 point apart
Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.
Wins on live music and the arts and shopping with your weighting.
What matters to you?
When should you go?
Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.
Galle in July
Santa Fe in July
Daytime high, °C
Rainfall in the month, mm
Where the figures come from
Galle has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.
Santa Fe's station stands 199 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.
Santa Fe 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. Galle: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. Santa Fe: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Fe / Cieneguilla (12.4 km from centre).
Before you go
| Measure | Galle | Santa Fe |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Tamil, Sinhala | - |
| Currency | Sri Lanka Rupee (LKR) | US Dollar (USD) |
| Sockets | GM230 V, 50 Hz | AB120 V, 60 Hz |
| Driving side | Left | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+5:30 | UTC-7, UTC-6 in summer |
| Emergency number | Police 119, ambulance 110, fire 110 | 911 |
| Elevation | 0 m | 2,134 m |
| Main airport | Bandaranaike International Colombo Airport (CMB)133 km from centre56 non-stop destinations | Santa Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)12 km from centre5 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | - | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Galle | Santa Fe |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 93,118 | 87,505 |
| People per km² | - | 645 |
| Museums within 10 km | 2 | 10 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 2 | 0 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 12 months | - |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Galle or Santa Fe somewhere new.