VacationSelector
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow
GlasgowKelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
A madrasa and its minarets on the Registan, Samarkand
SamarkandA madrasa and its minarets on the Registan

Photos: Glasgow by Stinglehammer, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Samarkand by Yaşar Başkurt, Pexels License.

Glasgow or Samarkand?

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

  • nightlife
  • live music and the arts
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Samarkand for

  • prices
  • culture and sights
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Samarkand’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, Samarkand 4: Glasgow leads by 10 points.
Food & drink. Glasgow 52, Samarkand 54: Samarkand leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. Glasgow 62, Samarkand 84: Samarkand leads by 22 points.
Nightlife. Glasgow 66, Samarkand 14: Glasgow leads by 52 points.
Nature & outdoors. Glasgow 75, Samarkand 40: Glasgow leads by 35 points.
Day trips. Glasgow 76, Samarkand 72: Glasgow leads by 4 points.
Good for families. Glasgow 58, Samarkand 30: Glasgow leads by 28 points.
Getting around. Glasgow 66, Samarkand 58: Glasgow leads by 8 points.
Shopping & style. Glasgow 64, Samarkand 42: Glasgow leads by 22 points.
Affordability. Glasgow 46, Samarkand 80: Samarkand leads by 34 points.
Live music & performing arts. Glasgow 72, Samarkand 24: Glasgow leads by 48 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Glasgow 28, Samarkand 32: Samarkand leads by 4 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Glasgow and Samarkand.

Your match

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

Glasgow
Best match
57match

Wins on nightlife and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Samarkand
45match

Wins on prices and culture and sights 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

Samarkand in July

34 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
2 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
GlasgowSamarkand

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). Samarkand: 1991-2020 normals, Samarkand (10 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureGlasgowSamarkand
Official languageEnglishUzbek
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Uzbekistan Sum (UZS)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzCFI220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC+5
Emergency number112 or 999112
Elevation21 m702 m
Main airportGlasgow Airport (GLA)11 km from centre95 non-stop destinationsSamarkand International Airport (SKD)5 km from centre29 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days-

By the numbers

MeasureGlasgowSamarkand
City population626,410546,303
People per km²1905,058
Museums within 10 km2911
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km21
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 Samarkand 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.