VacationSelector

Ghent or York?

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 places to eat with your weighting.

York
41
match

Has no clear advantage with the weighting you have chosen.

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 eating out matters: it has roughly twice as many restaurants near the centre, a wider range of kitchens, more museums and more late-night options, plus a few beaches within reach even if the sea stays cool.

Choose York if you want open country and family days out: a larger protected share of land around it, and three theme parks within reach against Ghent's one.

Scoreboard

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

GhentYork
Beaches & swimming. Ghent leads by 26 points.26
GhentYork
Score260
Swim season months00
Beaches 10 km82
Coast distance32 km50 km
Water distance32 km—
Places to eat. Ghent leads by 16 points.16
GhentYork
Score7054
Restaurants within 2 km of centre764361
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km4931
Museums & heritage. Ghent leads by 12 points.12
GhentYork
Score5846
Museums within 10 km2418
Museums within 2 km of centre2016
Share of museums within 2 km %8389
Unesco sites within 50 km52
Nightlife. Ghent leads by 6 points.6
GhentYork
Score4943
Drinking venues within 4 km570450
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre446353
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %7878
Nightclubs within 4 km2614
Nature & day trips. Ghent leads by 1 points.1
GhentYork
Score3433
Protected land share 50 km %717
Landscape blanket share 50 km %416
Land share of disc %8795
Park area within 2 km84 hectares42 hectares
Good for families. Ghent leads by 7 points.7
GhentYork
Score5043
Tourist attractions within 2 km1913
Park area within 2 km84 hectares42 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km13
Sights concentration. Ghent leads by 7 points.7
GhentYork
Score4639
Notable places within 2 km5537
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Ghent leads by 6 points.6
GhentYork
Score6054
Price level global76.284.9
Daily budget€180—
Year-round weather. Ghent and York are level on 56.
GhentYork
Score5656
Monthly daytime high6.4 °C to 22 °C6.7 °C to 20.9 °C
Monthly rainfall35 mm to 79 mm39 mm to 66 mm
Dry months11
0255075100

Where they differ

Ghent has about twice as many restaurants near the centre as York, and a much wider range of kitchens. It also has somewhat more museums, and 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against York's 2. Beaches are a Ghent advantage too, 8 nearby against York's 2, though the water stays cool.

York's edge is in the surroundings: 17% of the land around it is protected, a larger share than around Ghent, which suits walking days. For families it has 3 theme parks within reach against Ghent's 1.

Where they are alike

Weather is the closest match: the year moves through much the same band, roughly 6-22°C in Ghent and 7-21°C in York, and each city has just one month at 40mm of rain or less.

The two are also close on nights out, on day trips and on how much sits within walking distance of the centre. In both, most places to drink are near the centre, and day-trip options are similar in scope.

Which traveller are you?

A traveller who plans days around eating and evenings out should take Ghent: about twice as many restaurants near the centre, a much wider range of kitchens, and more places to drink, most of them near the centre.

Families with children who want rides should look at York, which has 3 theme parks within reach against Ghent's 1. Families wanting museums, attractions and park space close to the hotel are better off in Ghent.

Anyone who wants countryside on a day off will find a larger protected share around York, at 17%, while Ghent answers with more beaches nearby and heritage on a wider scale, including 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach.

What the numbers don't tell you

No cost comparison is possible here. The dataset carries a daily budget for Ghent, about €180, and none at all for York, so nothing in these figures tells you whether York works out dearer or cheaper. The value ranking rests on a different measure both cities have, not on what a day costs.

Ghent's beach advantage is thinner than the count suggests: the sea peaks at 19°C and never reaches 21°C, so this is paddling rather than swimming. Its warmest weeks are also among its wettest, at 74-79mm, which is worth knowing before planning a trip around warm water.

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
York
7
8
10
13
16
19
21
20
18
14
10
7
Sea temperature, °C
Ghent
6
6
6
9
12
16
18
19
18
15
11
8
York
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
Ghent
59
52
44
35
51
64
74
79
72
76
78
74
York
53
44
39
48
43
61
56
65
58
66
62
60
Daylight, hours per day
Ghent
9
10
12
14
16
17
16
15
13
11
9
8
York
8
10
12
14
16
17
17
15
13
11
9
8
Sunshine, hours per day
Ghent
3
3
5
7
8
8
8
7
6
4
3
2
York
2
3
4
5
6
5
6
5
4
3
2
2

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Ghent: 1991-2020 normals, Vlissingen (44.9 km from centre). York: 1991-2020 normals, Leeming (47.9 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Ghent is at its best in July and August, with highs of 22°C, though those are also its wettest summer months at 74-79mm. April is the driest month of its year at 35mm and good for walking the city.

York's peak is narrower, July at 21°C, and its summer rain is lighter at 56-65mm. Spring stays drier still at 39-48mm, which is when York is the easier of the two for days on foot.

Getting there

Flying fromGhentYork
BarcelonaBCN
1 h 55 m
€47-116
BRU · 56 km
2 h 20 m
no fares
LBA · 39 km
MadridMAD
2 h 15 m
€98-170
BRU · 56 km
2 h 20 m
no fares
MAN · 104 km
GenevaGVA
1 h 20 m
no fares
BRU · 56 km
1 h 50 m
no fares
LBA · 39 km
RomeFCO, CIA
2 h 5 m
€87-136
1 stop
BRU · 56 km
2 h 40 m
no fares
LBA · 39 km
BucharestOTP, BBU
2 h 45 m
€72-114
CRL · 84 km
3 h 20 m
no fares
LBA · 39 km
ViennaVIE
1 h 45 m
€93-156
BRU · 56 km
2 h 20 m
no fares
LBA · 39 km
WarsawWAW, WMI
2 h 0 m
€41-51
BRU · 56 km
2 h 25 m
no fares
LBA · 39 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
7 h 35 m
no fares
BRU · 56 km
7 h 0 m
no fares
MAN · 104 km
AgadirAGA
3 h 40 m
no fares
CRL · 84 km
3 h 50 m
no fares
LBA · 39 km
BeijingPEK, PKX
10 h 0 m
no fares
BRU · 56 km
10 h 10 m
no fares
MAN · 104 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

MeasureGhentYork
Official languageFrench, German, DutchEnglish
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Pound Sterling (GBP)
SocketsCE230 V, 50 HzG230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC, UTC+1 in summer
Emergency number112112 or 999
Elevation12 m25 m
Main airportBrussels Airport (BRU)56 km from centre191 non-stop destinationsLeeds Bradford Airport (LBA)39 km from centre73 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days8 days

By the numbers

MeasureGhentYork
City population272,657208,400
People per km²1,728766
Museums within 10 km3024
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km52
Distinct cuisines in the centre8354
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 York 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. 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. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0.

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.