VacationSelector
Galway Cathedral from the River Corrib, Galway
GalwayGalway Cathedral from the River Corrib
The floating torii of Itsukushima at Miyajima, Hiroshima
HiroshimaThe floating torii of Itsukushima at Miyajima

Photos: Galway by Dieglop, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Hiroshima by Guohua Song, Pexels License.

Galway 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 Galway for

  • live music and the arts
  • nature and the outdoors
  • nightlife

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

Choose Hiroshima for

  • prices
  • culture and sights
  • day trips

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. Galway 28, Hiroshima 30: Hiroshima leads by 2 points.
Food & drink. Galway 45, Hiroshima 66: Hiroshima leads by 21 points.
Culture & sights. Galway 33, Hiroshima 60: Hiroshima leads by 27 points.
Nightlife. Galway 50, Hiroshima 45: Galway leads by 5 points.
Nature & outdoors. Galway 78, Hiroshima 62: Galway leads by 16 points.
Day trips. Galway 56, Hiroshima 80: Hiroshima leads by 24 points.
Good for families. Galway 42, Hiroshima 60: Hiroshima leads by 18 points.
Getting around. Galway 58, Hiroshima 74: Hiroshima leads by 16 points.
Shopping & style. Galway 38, Hiroshima 52: Hiroshima leads by 14 points.
Affordability. Galway 28, Hiroshima 58: Hiroshima leads by 30 points.
Live music & performing arts. Galway 57, Hiroshima 38: Galway leads by 19 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Galway 28, Hiroshima 50: Hiroshima leads by 22 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Galway and Hiroshima.

Your match

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

Galway
45match

Wins on live music and the arts and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Hiroshima
Best match
56match

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.

Galway in July

20 °Cdaytime high
13 °Cnight-time low
91 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
16 °Csea
16 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
GalwayHiroshima

Where the figures come from

Galway's temperatures are measured 64 km from the centre, at Shannon Airport.

Galway 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. Galway: 1991-2020 normals, Shannon Airport (64.2 km from centre). Hiroshima: 1991-2020 normals, Hiroshima (1.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureGalwayHiroshima
Official languageEnglish, IrishJapanese
CurrencyEuro (EUR)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 number112Police 110, fire 119
Elevation25 m3 m
Main airportShannon Airport (SNN)64 km from centre39 non-stop destinationsHiroshima Airport (HIJ)43 km from centre10 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureGalwayHiroshima
City population83,4561,198,021
People per km²1,5631,324
Museums within 10 km418
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km02
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 Galway 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). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.