Ghent or London?
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 value for money 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 Ghent if you want a small centre you can cross on foot, where the museums, restaurants and bars sit close together, and if a wider spread of kitchens matters more than sheer choice.
Choose London if you want scale: far more places to eat and drink, far more museums, more to see within walking distance of the centre, and 3 theme parks within reach for children.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Ghent leads by 26 points.26
| Ghent | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 26 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 8 | 47 |
| Coast distance | 32 km | 43 km |
| Water distance | 32 km | — |
Places to eat. London leads by 18 points.18
| Ghent | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 70 | 88 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 764 | 3,317 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 49 | 40 |
Museums & heritage. London leads by 14 points.14
| Ghent | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 58 | 72 |
| Museums within 10 km | 24 | 148 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 20 | 49 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 83 | 33 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 5 | 4 |
Nightlife. London leads by 46 points.46
| Ghent | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 49 | 95 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 570 | 5,327 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 446 | 2,443 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 78 | 46 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 26 | 312 |
Nature & day trips. London leads by 6 points.6
| Ghent | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 34 | 40 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 7 | 16 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 4 | 14 |
| Land share of disc % | 87 | 97 |
| Park area within 2 km | 84 hectares | 84 hectares |
Good for families. London leads by 25 points.25
| Ghent | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 50 | 75 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 19 | 85 |
| Park area within 2 km | 84 hectares | 84 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 1 | 3 |
Sights concentration. London leads by 43 points.43
| Ghent | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 46 | 89 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 55 | 649 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Ghent leads by 6 points.6
| Ghent | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 60 | 54 |
| Price level global | 76.2 | 84.9 |
| Daily budget | €180 | — |
Year-round weather. London leads by 7 points.7
| Ghent | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 56 | 63 |
| Monthly daytime high | 6.4 °C to 22 °C | 8.2 °C to 23.8 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 35 mm to 79 mm | 38 mm to 67 mm |
| Dry months | 1 | 1 |
Where they differ
Ghent's strength is compactness: its museums cluster around the centre and most of its bars and clubs are there too. It offers a wider range of kitchens, and 5 UNESCO-listed places lie within day-trip reach against London's 4.
London counts many times as many restaurants, bars, clubs and museums, and far more notable places within walking distance of the centre, though only about half its nightlife is central. It has 3 theme parks within reach against Ghent's 1, and 16% of surrounding land protected against 7%.
Where they are alike
Nature is where they sit closest: both have a similar amount of park space near the centre, so green breathing room within the city is comparable, though the land beyond London holds a larger protected share.
Weather and heritage are close too. Both run mild rather than hot, 6-22°C against 8-24°C, both have just 1 month at 40mm of rain or less, and neither offers sea at 21°C or more. Both also have UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach.
Which traveller are you?
Anyone whose trip is built around evenings should take London: many times as many bars and clubs. Ghent's counterweight is that almost all of its nightlife sits within walking distance of the centre, London's about half.
Families are better served in London: far more attractions near the centre and 3 theme parks within reach against Ghent's 1. Park space near the centre is much the same in both.
A traveller who wants museums on foot and a base for day trips will find Ghent tidier: its museums sit tightly around the centre, with 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against London's 4.
What the numbers don't tell you
One comparison is simply unavailable: the dataset carries a daily budget for Ghent, about €180, and none at all for London, so nothing here tells you what the second city costs. The value figures behind the ranking rest on a different measure that both cities share, not on prices.
The beach counts also mislead. London has 47 beaches nearby against Ghent's 8, but neither has a month of sea at 21°C or more, and warm water is not what either offers. Ghent's warmest months are also its wettest, so a summer trip trades warmth against rain.
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. Ghent: 1991-2020 normals, Vlissingen (44.9 km from centre). London: 1991-2020 normals, London Heathrow Airport (22.5 km from centre).
Ghent is at its best in late spring: April is its driest month at 35mm with highs of 13°C, and May reaches 17°C. Its summer is warm at 20-22°C, and the sea peaks at 19°C in August, but July and August are also its wettest stretch, 74-79mm.
London holds the better summer, 22-24°C from June to August with rain steadier at 46-53mm, and it stays drier into autumn, 64mm in October against Ghent's 76mm. Winter highs sit slightly higher too, 8-9°C in January and February.
Getting there
| Flying from | Ghent | London |
|---|---|---|
| MadridMAD | 2 h 15 m €98-170 BRU · 56 km | 2 h 10 m €124-216 LHR · 23 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 55 m €47-116 BRU · 56 km | 2 h 0 m €61-144 LGW · 40 km |
| GenevaGVA | 1 h 20 m no fares BRU · 56 km | 1 h 35 m €184-208 LHR · 23 km |
| AntalyaAYT | 3 h 45 m €179-232 1 stop BRU · 56 km | 4 h 5 m €144-189 LGW · 40 km |
| MilanMXP, BGY, LIN | 1 h 25 m €36-101 BRU · 56 km | 1 h 45 m €83-138 LGW · 40 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 7 h 35 m no fares BRU · 56 km | 7 h 10 m €518-651 1 stop LHR · 23 km |
| AthensATH | 3 h 10 m €118-155 1 stop BRU · 56 km | 3 h 30 m €258-349 1 stop LHR · 23 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 6 h 45 m no fares BRU · 56 km | 7 h 10 m no fares LHR · 23 km |
| BeijingPEK, PKX | 10 h 0 m no fares BRU · 56 km | 10 h 15 m no fares LHR · 23 km |
| Sao PauloGRU, VCP, CGH, RTE | 12 h 0 m no fares BRU · 56 km | 11 h 50 m no fares LHR · 23 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 | Ghent | London |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | French, German, Dutch | English |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Pound Sterling (GBP) |
| Sockets | CE230 V, 50 Hz | G230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Left |
| Time zone | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer | UTC, UTC+1 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 | 112 or 999 |
| Elevation | 12 m | 4 m |
| Main airport | Brussels Airport (BRU)56 km from centre191 non-stop destinations | London Heathrow Airport (LHR)23 km from centre220 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 14 days | 8 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Ghent | London |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 272,657 | 8,799,728 |
| People per km² | 1,728 | 5,598 |
| Museums within 10 km | 30 | 215 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 5 | 4 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 83 | 116 |
| 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 Ghent or London somewhere new.