VacationSelector
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow
GlasgowKelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
The Johannesburg skyline and the Hillbrow Tower, Johannesburg
JohannesburgThe Johannesburg skyline and the Hillbrow Tower

Photos: Glasgow by Stinglehammer, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Johannesburg by K, Pexels License.

Glasgow or Johannesburg?

Our verdict in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities, and the climate month by month, so you can choose for your trip.

Choose Glasgow for

  • getting around
  • day trips
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Glasgow’s own page.

Choose Johannesburg for

  • prices
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Johannesburg’s own page.

Scoreboard

Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.

Beaches & swimming. Glasgow 14, Johannesburg 5: Glasgow leads by 9 points.
Food & drink. Glasgow 52, Johannesburg 58: Johannesburg leads by 6 points.
Culture & sights. Glasgow 62, Johannesburg 56: Glasgow leads by 6 points.
Nightlife. Glasgow 66, Johannesburg 62: Glasgow leads by 4 points.
Nature & outdoors. Glasgow 75, Johannesburg 55: Glasgow leads by 20 points.
Day trips. Glasgow 76, Johannesburg 52: Glasgow leads by 24 points.
Good for families. Glasgow 58, Johannesburg 42: Glasgow leads by 16 points.
Getting around. Glasgow 66, Johannesburg 18: Glasgow leads by 48 points.
Shopping & style. Glasgow 64, Johannesburg 58: Glasgow leads by 6 points.
Affordability. Glasgow 46, Johannesburg 72: Johannesburg leads by 26 points.
Live music & performing arts. Glasgow 72, Johannesburg 55: Glasgow leads by 17 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Glasgow and Johannesburg are level on 28.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Glasgow and Johannesburg.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Glasgow
Best match
57match

Wins on getting around and day trips with your weighting.

Johannesburg
47match

Wins on prices and food and drink with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Glasgow in July

19 °Cdaytime high
11 °Cnight-time low
85 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
15 °Csea
17 hdaylight a day

Johannesburg in July

19 °Cdaytime high
4 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
No seasea
11 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
GlasgowJohannesburg

Where the figures come from

Glasgow has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Glasgow's sunshine is measured 90 km from the centre, at Eskdalemuir.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Glasgow: 1991-2020 normals, Glasgow Airport (11.5 km from centre). Johannesburg: 2005-2019 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Johannesburg B / Roosevelt Park (7.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureGlasgowJohannesburg
Official languageEnglishEnglish, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign Language
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Rand (ZAR)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzCMN230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC+2
Emergency number112 or 999112
Elevation21 m1,753 m
Main airportGlasgow Airport (GLA)11 km from centre95 non-stop destinationsO.R. Tambo International Airport (JNB)22 km from centre84 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureGlasgowJohannesburg
City population626,4104,803,262
People per km²1902,922
Museums within 10 km2914
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km22
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone-

Where else could you go?

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

Browse every destination

Sources

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. Rainfall where no rain gauge is within 25 km is from the TerraClimate 1991-2020 climatology (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, Scientific Data), read at the city. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.