Gdansk or Warsaw?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on beaches & swimming and good for families with your weighting.
Wins on nightlife and sights concentration 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 Gdansk if you want the coast: the sea reaches 19°C in August, the centre is small, and children's attractions sit close together.
Choose Warsaw if the city itself is the point: many more restaurants, bars and clubs near the centre, about twice the museums, more park space and more protected land within day-trip reach, and a slightly warmer, drier year.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Gdansk leads by 55 points.55
| Gdansk | Warsaw | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 55 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 20 | 26 |
| Coast distance | 1 km | 238 km |
| Water distance | 1 km | — |
Places to eat. Warsaw leads by 20 points.20
| Gdansk | Warsaw | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 52 | 72 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 348 | 1,222 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 28 | 34 |
Museums & heritage. Warsaw leads by 6 points.6
| Gdansk | Warsaw | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 57 | 63 |
| Museums within 10 km | 43 | 107 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 28 | 60 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 65 | 56 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 2 | 1 |
Nightlife. Warsaw leads by 26 points.26
| Gdansk | Warsaw | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 36 | 62 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 269 | 1,005 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 203 | 648 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 75 | 64 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 30 | 104 |
Nature & day trips. Warsaw leads by 10 points.10
| Gdansk | Warsaw | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 45 | 55 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 12 | 27 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 3 | 19 |
| Land share of disc % | 70 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 61 hectares | 107 hectares |
Good for families. Gdansk leads by 5 points.5
| Gdansk | Warsaw | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 75 | 70 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 108 | 42 |
| Park area within 2 km | 61 hectares | 107 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 3 | 5 |
Sights concentration. Warsaw leads by 24 points.24
| Gdansk | Warsaw | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 52 | 76 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 76 | 299 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Gdansk and Warsaw are level on 79.
| Gdansk | Warsaw | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 79 | 79 |
| Price level global | 49 | 49 |
| Daily budget | €133 | €133 |
Year-round weather. Warsaw leads by 7 points.7
| Gdansk | Warsaw | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 52 | 59 |
| Monthly daytime high | 0.7 °C to 22.1 °C | 0.9 °C to 25.2 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 37 mm to 87 mm | 29 mm to 83 mm |
| Dry months | 3 | 6 |
Where they differ
Gdansk is the coastal one, with beaches on open sea and swimming in late summer, though the water never reaches 21°C. Warsaw counts more beaches nearby but no sea behind them.
Warsaw is the stronger city break. It has about three times as many bars and three times as many nightclubs as Gdansk, most of them near the centre, and about three times as many notable places within walking distance, so a short stay covers more ground on foot. Gdansk's centre is smaller and its evenings quieter.
Where they are alike
Both work with children, by different routes. Gdansk packs far more attractions into a small centre; Warsaw counters with more park space and 5 theme parks within reach against Gdansk's 3. Either way, a family week fills itself.
Museums and climate land close too. Both hold a substantial stock of museums and UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, Gdansk's clustered more tightly around the centre. Both run from 1°C in winter to summer highs above 20°C.
Which traveller are you?
A family with young children is better served by Gdansk. Its attractions sit clustered in one walkable centre, roughly three times what Warsaw offers near the middle, and the coast is close when the weather holds.
Anyone travelling mainly to eat and go out should pick Warsaw: about three times the restaurants near the centre, a wider range of kitchens, and bars and clubs by a similar margin.
Walkers after green space and day trips also lean Warsaw, where 27% of the surrounding land is protected against 12% around Gdansk, with more park space in the city. Gdansk answers with 2 UNESCO-listed places within reach against 1.
What the numbers don't tell you
The value figure is a national price level, identical for both by construction, so the comparison there carries no information: it does not mean the two cities cost the same, and neither is the better bargain on this evidence. The daily budget of €133 beside it is one national estimate, not a measurement of either city.
Gdansk's coastal edge is also narrower than it looks. The sea is only worth entering for a few weeks, and those weeks are the rainiest of its year. Warsaw's higher beach count reflects counting, not swimming: there is no sea temperature to record there at all.
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. Gdansk: 1991-2020 normals, Gdansk-Rebiechowo (12.7 km from centre). Warsaw: 1991-2020 normals, Warszawa-Okecie (7.7 km from centre).
Gdansk peaks in July and August, with highs of 22°C and the sea at 18°C. Those are also its wettest months, near 87mm, and September stays damp, so pack for showers even in the warm weeks.
Warsaw suits a wider spread. May and June bring highs of 20-23°C on 56-63mm, and April is drier still at 36mm. Across the year Warsaw has twice as many dry months as Gdansk, so a shoulder-season trip there carries less risk of rain.
Getting there
| Flying from | Gdansk | Warsaw |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 2 h 10 m no fares GDN · 13 km | 2 h 25 m no fares WAW · 8 km |
| OsloOSL, TRF | 1 h 35 m no fares GDN · 13 km | 1 h 55 m no fares WAW · 8 km |
| CopenhagenCPH | 1 h 10 m no fares GDN · 13 km | 1 h 25 m no fares WAW · 8 km |
| AntalyaAYT | 3 h 10 m no fares GDN · 13 km | 2 h 50 m no fares WAW · 8 km |
| StockholmARN, BMA, NYO, VST | 1 h 20 m no fares GDN · 13 km | 1 h 40 m no fares WAW · 8 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 45 m no fares GDN · 13 km | 2 h 0 m no fares WAW · 8 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 2 h 10 m no fares GDN · 13 km | 2 h 15 m no fares WAW · 8 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 1 h 40 m no fares GDN · 13 km | 1 h 45 m no fares WAW · 8 km |
| MunichMUC | 1 h 35 m no fares GDN · 13 km | 1 h 35 m no fares WAW · 8 km |
| HurghadaHRG | 4 h 30 m no fares GDN · 13 km | 4 h 10 m no fares WAW · 8 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.
Before you go
| Measure | Gdansk | Warsaw |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Polish | Polish |
| Currency | Zloty (PLN) | Zloty (PLN) |
| Sockets | CE50 Hz | CE50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 | 112 |
| Elevation | 11 m | 118 m |
| Main airport | Gdańsk Lech Wałęsa Airport (GDN)13 km from centre65 non-stop destinations | Warsaw Chopin Airport (WAW)8 km from centre170 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 14 days | 14 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Gdansk | Warsaw |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 487,834 | 1,862,402 |
| People per km² | 714 | 3,601 |
| Museums within 10 km | 37 | 117 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 2 | 1 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 48 | 76 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | None | – |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Gdansk or Warsaw somewhere new.