Geneva or Paris?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on nature & day trips 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 Geneva if your trip bends outdoors: roughly twice the park space near the centre, lake beaches within reach, and warmer summer highs, up to 27°C.
Choose Paris if you want everything close together: far more notable places, museums and bars within walking distance of the centre, a longer comfortable season, and drier months in late winter, when Geneva stays wet.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Geneva and Paris are level on 0.
| Geneva | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 43 | 2 |
| Coast distance | 279 km | 149 km |
| Water distance | — | — |
Places to eat. Paris leads by 20 points.20
| Geneva | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 70 | 90 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 1,028 | 4,732 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 35 | 33 |
Museums & heritage. Paris leads by 24 points.24
| Geneva | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 52 | 76 |
| Museums within 10 km | 35 | 185 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 20 | 65 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 57 | 35 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 2 | 4 |
Nightlife. Paris leads by 38 points.38
| Geneva | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 50 | 88 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 549 | 3,796 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 427 | 1,694 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 78 | 45 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 60 | 201 |
Nature & day trips. Geneva leads by 11 points.11
| Geneva | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 59 | 48 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 27 | 28 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 21 | 26 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 182 hectares | 82 hectares |
Good for families. Paris leads by 10 points.10
| Geneva | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 65 | 75 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 28 | 89 |
| Park area within 2 km | 182 hectares | 82 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 2 | 3 |
Sights concentration. Paris leads by 38 points.38
| Geneva | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 56 | 94 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 99 | 865 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Paris leads by 27 points.27
| Geneva | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 35 | 62 |
| Price level global | 110.5 | 73.7 |
| Daily budget | €248 | €160 |
Year-round weather. Paris leads by 7 points.7
| Geneva | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 59 | 66 |
| Monthly daytime high | 5.1 °C to 26.8 °C | 7.8 °C to 26 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 55 mm to 94 mm | 38 mm to 75 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 1 |
Where they differ
Geneva's strengths are outdoors: about twice as much park space near the centre as Paris, and 43 beaches nearby against Paris's 2. Its summers run a shade warmer, to 27°C.
Paris is the denser city by far: many times as many notable places within walking distance of the centre, many times as many museums, and 4 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Geneva's 2. It also has many times as many restaurants and drinking places near the centre, and about three times as many nightclubs.
Where they are alike
Neither city is a place to swim. Geneva has lake beaches nearby and Paris has almost none, but neither has a month of water at 21°C or more, so a trip built around swimming does not work in either.
They also share their broad seasons, 5-27°C across the year in Geneva against 8-26°C in Paris, and similar shares of protected land within day-trip reach, 27% and 28%. Both work with children, each with theme parks in reach.
Which traveller are you?
A traveller after museums and late nights should take Paris: many times as many museums as Geneva, 4 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, and far more bars and clubs, with the drinking spread across the city rather than clustered centrally.
Anyone who wants green space and water inside the day should take Geneva: roughly twice the park space near the centre, 43 beaches nearby, and warm summer highs to 27°C.
Families are better served in Paris, with about three times as many tourist attractions near the centre and 3 theme parks within reach against 2, though Geneva's parks suit younger children on a slow day.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €248 for Switzerland and €160 for France, are national estimates of restaurant and hotel price levels, not measurements of Geneva or Paris. A capital or a heavily visited city can sit far from its own country's average, by more than the gap between them.
No weather station near Paris records sunshine hours, so that figure is missing rather than low, and the monthly picture there rests on temperature and rainfall alone. Geneva's 43 beaches are lake beaches: neither city has a month of water at 21°C or more, so the count does not promise warm swimming.
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. Geneva: 1991-2020 normals, Geneve-Cointrin (5.7 km from centre). Paris: 1991-2020 normals, Paris-Montsouris (4.6 km from centre).
Geneva is at its best from June to August, when highs reach 24-27°C. Rain sits at 77-81mm through that stretch and climbs to 87-94mm later in the year, so the autumn shoulder is wetter than the summer.
Paris holds a longer season: June to September brings 22-26°C with 51-58mm of rain, and February and March are its driest months at 38-41mm, the sort of dry stretch Geneva does not get. Winter is milder too, 8°C against Geneva's 5°C.
Getting there
| Flying from | Geneva | Paris |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 35 m €91-200 GVA · 5 km | 1 h 5 m €63-103 CDG · 22 km |
| LisbonLIS | 2 h 25 m €156-181 1 stop GVA · 5 km | 2 h 20 m €138-242 ORY · 14 km |
| PortoOPO | 2 h 10 m €127-171 1 stop GVA · 5 km | 2 h 5 m €113-136 ORY · 14 km |
| MadridMAD | 1 h 50 m no fares GVA · 5 km | 1 h 55 m €107-141 ORY · 14 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 8 h 0 m no fares GVA · 5 km | 7 h 30 m €579-648 1 stop CDG · 22 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 30 m €160-186 GVA · 5 km | 1 h 10 m €188-212 CDG · 22 km |
| NiceNCE | 1 h 0 m €64-114 GVA · 5 km | 1 h 30 m €86-132 ORY · 14 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 25 m €65-78 GVA · 5 km | 1 h 40 m €110-135 CDG · 22 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 6 h 25 m €318-351 1 stop GVA · 5 km | 6 h 50 m €292-389 1 stop CDG · 22 km |
| BeijingPEK, PKX | 10 h 20 m no fares GVA · 5 km | 10 h 20 m no fares CDG · 22 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. Typical return fares for 2026-08 to 2026-10, cached market data up to 7 days old. The figure is the middle half of the offers found, so a single price means they agreed and a range means they did not; for a typical route that middle half spans about a quarter of the median, and for the least settled routes rather more than the median itself.
Before you go
| Measure | Geneva | Paris |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | French, German, Italian, Romansh | French |
| Currency | Swiss Franc (CHF) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CJ230 V, 50 Hz | CE230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 | 112 |
| Elevation | 403 m | 27 m |
| Main airport | Geneva International Airport (GVA)5 km from centre140 non-stop destinations | Charles de Gaulle International Airport (CDG)22 km from centre277 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 9 days | 11 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Geneva | Paris |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 209,061 | 2,103,778 |
| People per km² | 13,148 | 19,960 |
| Museums within 10 km | 35 | 251 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 2 | 4 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 80 | 169 |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Geneva or Paris somewhere new.