VacationSelector

Ghent or Strasbourg?

Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Your match

Ghent
✓ Best match
50
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and museums & heritage with your weighting.

Strasbourg
47
match

Wins on nature & day trips 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 your trip runs on evenings and interiors: more bars and clubs near the centre, a wider range of kitchens, and more UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach.

Choose Strasbourg if you want a compact centre you can cross on foot, protected countryside for days out, and warmer, drier summers, with highs of 26°C.

Scoreboard

Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.

GhentStrasbourg
Beaches & swimming. Ghent leads by 26 points.26
GhentStrasbourg
Score260
Swim season months00
Beaches 10 km89
Coast distance32 km398 km
Water distance32 km—
Places to eat. Ghent leads by 3 points.3
GhentStrasbourg
Score7067
Restaurants within 2 km of centre764780
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km4936
Museums & heritage. Ghent leads by 17 points.17
GhentStrasbourg
Score5841
Museums within 10 km2423
Museums within 2 km of centre2014
Share of museums within 2 km %8361
Unesco sites within 50 km51
Nightlife. Ghent leads by 13 points.13
GhentStrasbourg
Score4936
Drinking venues within 4 km570305
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre446264
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %7887
Nightclubs within 4 km2617
Nature & day trips. Strasbourg leads by 20 points.20
GhentStrasbourg
Score3454
Protected land share 50 km %737
Landscape blanket share 50 km %435
Land share of disc %87100
Park area within 2 km84 hectares71 hectares
Good for families. Ghent leads by 12 points.12
GhentStrasbourg
Score5038
Tourist attractions within 2 km199
Park area within 2 km84 hectares71 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km11
Sights concentration. Strasbourg leads by 12 points.12
GhentStrasbourg
Score4658
Notable places within 2 km55109
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Strasbourg leads by 2 points.2
GhentStrasbourg
Score6062
Price level global76.273.7
Daily budget€180€160
Year-round weather. Strasbourg leads by 7 points.7
GhentStrasbourg
Score5663
Monthly daytime high6.4 °C to 22 °C5.2 °C to 26.4 °C
Monthly rainfall35 mm to 79 mm34 mm to 77 mm
Dry months13
0255075100

Where they differ

Ghent has about twice as many bars and about twice as many nightclubs, most near the centre, and a somewhat wider range of kitchens from a similar number of restaurants. It also has 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Strasbourg's 1, and sea water that warms to 19°C at its peak.

Strasbourg puts about twice as many notable places within walking distance of the centre, and 37% of the land around it is protected against 7% around Ghent. Summers run warmer, to 26°C.

Where they are alike

The two sit close on value. The national price estimates behind them, €180 for Belgium and €160 for France, are of a similar order, so neither trip is likely to be shaped by cost in a way the other is not.

Eating out and the weather also land close. Both have a similar number of restaurants near the centre, with Ghent the broader in kitchens, and both have cold Januaries, 6°C in Ghent and 5°C in Strasbourg.

Which traveller are you?

Someone whose evenings matter should take Ghent. It has about twice as many bars and nightclubs as Strasbourg, most of them near the centre, and a wider range of kitchens to eat through beforehand.

Someone who wants countryside within reach should take Strasbourg. 37% of the surrounding land is protected against 7% around Ghent, and the centre puts about twice as many notable places within reach on foot.

Families are better served in Ghent, with about twice as many tourist attractions near the centre and more park space; both cities have 1 theme park within reach.

What the numbers don't tell you

The daily budget figures are national, €180 for Belgium and €160 for France, a price level for restaurants and hotels rather than a measurement of Ghent or Strasbourg. A city can sit further from its own country's average than the two averages sit from each other, so treat the gap as background, not as a reason to pick one.

Beach counts are thin evidence. Both have beaches nearby, but neither has a month of sea at 21°C or more, and Strasbourg has no sea temperature; Ghent's water peaks at 19°C. Warm months are not dry ones either: Ghent's warmest months are its wettest.

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.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Ghent
6
7
10
13
17
20
22
22
19
15
10
7
Strasbourg
5
7
12
17
21
24
26
26
22
16
9
6
Sea temperature, °C
Ghent
6
6
6
9
12
16
18
19
18
15
11
8
Strasbourg
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
Ghent
59
52
44
35
51
64
74
79
72
76
78
74
Strasbourg
35
34
39
42
77
68
72
61
55
59
47
45
Daylight, hours per day
Ghent
9
10
12
14
16
17
16
15
13
11
9
8
Strasbourg
9
10
12
14
15
16
16
14
13
11
9
8
Sunshine, hours per day
Ghent
3
3
5
7
8
8
8
7
6
4
3
2
Strasbourg
2
3
5
6
7
7
8
7
6
3
2
1

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Ghent: 1991-2020 normals, Vlissingen (44.9 km from centre). Strasbourg: 1991-2020 normals, Strasbourg (9.1 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Ghent is at its best in July and August, with highs of 22°C and sea water at 19°C, though these are also its wettest months at 74-79mm. April is drier, at 35mm.

Strasbourg's window is wider: June to August run warm, to 26°C, and summer rain sits below Ghent's. Late winter and early spring are its driest stretch, so a cool, dry city break works better there than in Ghent, where autumn and early winter are persistently wet.

Getting there

Flying fromGhentStrasbourg
BangkokBKK, DMK
11 h 35 m
no fares
BRU · 56 km
11 h 20 m
no fares
ZRH · 137 km
PalmaPMI
2 h 10 m
no fares
BRU · 56 km
2 h 0 m
no fares
FKB · 33 km
BarcelonaBCN
1 h 55 m
€47-116
BRU · 56 km
1 h 45 m
€133-212
1 stop
SXB · 10 km
MadridMAD
2 h 15 m
€98-170
BRU · 56 km
2 h 5 m
no fares
BSL · 110 km
NiceNCE
1 h 40 m
no fares
BRU · 56 km
1 h 20 m
€81-198
SXB · 10 km
RomeFCO, CIA
2 h 5 m
€87-136
1 stop
BRU · 56 km
1 h 40 m
no fares
SXB · 10 km
Sao PauloGRU, VCP, CGH, RTE
12 h 0 m
no fares
BRU · 56 km
12 h 0 m
no fares
ZRH · 137 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 5 m
€98-165
1 stop
BRU · 56 km
1 h 25 m
no fares
SXB · 10 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
7 h 35 m
no fares
BRU · 56 km
8 h 5 m
€606-782
1 stop
ZRH · 137 km
DubaiDXB, DWC
6 h 45 m
no fares
BRU · 56 km
6 h 15 m
€232-366
1 stop
ZRH · 137 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

MeasureGhentStrasbourg
Official languageFrench, German, DutchFrench
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCE230 V, 50 HzCE230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation12 m132 m
Main airportBrussels Airport (BRU)56 km from centre191 non-stop destinationsStrasbourg Airport (SXB)10 km from centre42 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureGhentStrasbourg
City population272,657293,771
People per km²1,7283,752
Museums within 10 km3021
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km51
Distinct cuisines in the centre8387
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone–

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Ghent or Strasbourg somewhere new.

Browse every destination we have measured

Sources

© OpenStreetMap contributors, data available under the Open Database Licence. Place counts include data from Overture Maps Foundation (CDLA Permissive 2.0), assembled from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and other providers. Notable-place counts from Wikidata (CC0), weighted by Wikipedia language editions. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

Scores follow rubric v2; snapshot generated 2026-08-31. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.