VacationSelector

Hanoi or Ottawa?

Two destinations compared in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

The Turtle Tower in Hoan Kiem Lake, Hanoi
Hanoi

Photo: xiquinhosilva, CC BY 2.0, cropped

Parliament Hill across the Ottawa River, Ottawa
Ottawa

Photo: Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped

Your match

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Hanoi
52
match

Wins on prices and food and drink with your weighting.

Ottawa
51
match

Wins on families and beaches with your weighting.

What matters to you?

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.

Scoreboard

Our verdict on each category, scored 0 to 100 against fixed benchmark cities.

HanoiOttawa
Beaches & swimming. Ottawa leads by 29 points.29
Food & drink. Hanoi leads by 40 points.40
Culture & sights. Hanoi leads by 10 points.10
Nightlife. Hanoi leads by 15 points.15
Nature & outdoors. Ottawa leads by 16 points.16
Day trips. Hanoi leads by 3 points.3
Good for families. Ottawa leads by 33 points.33
Getting around. Ottawa leads by 26 points.26
Shopping & style. Hanoi leads by 10 points.10
Affordability. Hanoi leads by 58 points.58
Live music & performing arts. Ottawa leads by 12 points.12
Wellness & relaxation. Ottawa leads by 9 points.9
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Hanoi and Ottawa.

When should you go?

Pick the month you can travel and see both cities side by side. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Climate figures for July
JulyHanoiOttawa
Daytime high34 °C27 °C
Night-time low27 °C16 °C
Rainfall in the month311 mm82 mm
Sunshine6 hours a dayNo figure
Daylight13 hours a day15 hours a day

The whole year

Each row is shaded against that destination’s own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that figure 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
Hanoi
19
22
24
28
32
35
34
33
32
30
27
23
Ottawa
-5
-3
3
11
19
24
27
26
22
14
6
-2
Rainfall, mm
Hanoi
23
23
52
72
204
272
311
310
179
109
73
30
Ottawa
60
53
56
74
66
87
82
89
78
94
59
80
Daylight, hours per day
Hanoi
11
11
12
13
13
13
13
13
12
12
11
11
Ottawa
9
10
12
14
15
16
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Hanoi
2
2
2
2
6
6
6
5
6
5
4
4
Ottawa
No sunshine record

Where the figures come from

Hanoi's sunshine is measured 86 km from the centre, at Phu Lien.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Hanoi: 1991-2020 normals, Ha Noi (4.4 km from centre). Ottawa: 1991-2020 normals, Ottawa CDA RCS (5.3 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromHanoiOttawa
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
11 h 30 m
no fares
HAN · 22 km
6 h 55 m
no fares
YOW · 12 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
11 h 25 m
no fares
HAN · 22 km
7 h 20 m
no fares
YOW · 12 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.

Before you go

MeasureHanoiOttawa
Official languageVietnameseFrench, English
CurrencyDong (VND)Canadian Dollar (CAD)
SocketsACFG220 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+7UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 113, ambulance 115, fire 114911
Elevation10 m70 m
Main airportNoi Bai International Airport (HAN)22 km from centre91 non-stop destinationsOttawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport (YOW)12 km from centre46 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-11 days

By the numbers

MeasureHanoiOttawa
City population8,717,6001,017,449
People per km²2,595366
Museums within 10 km1420
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11

Where else could you go?

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

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). 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. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate and flight figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-27. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.