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

Photo: Nabin K. Sapkota, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped

Photo: Brownc, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped
Your match
Wins on culture and sights and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.
Wins on families and getting around 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.
What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Kathmandu and Kuala Lumpur.
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.
| July | Kathmandu | Kuala Lumpur |
|---|---|---|
| Daytime high | 29 °C | 33 °C |
| Night-time low | 20 °C | 25 °C |
| Rainfall in the month | 384 mm | 169 mm |
| Sunshine | 4 hours a day | No figure |
| Sea temperature | No sea | 30 °C |
| Daylight | 14 hours a day | 12 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.
Where the figures come from
Kuala Lumpur's temperatures are measured 46 km from the centre, at Sepang/KL International Airport.
Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Kathmandu: 1991-2020 normals, Kathmandu Airport (4.7 km from centre). Kuala Lumpur: 1991-2020 normals, Sepang/KL International Airport (46.1 km from centre).
Getting there
| Flying from | Kathmandu | Kuala Lumpur |
|---|---|---|
| BangkokBKK, DMK | 3 h 15 m €389-511 KTM · 4 km | 2 h 5 m €143-157 KUL · 45 km |
| SingaporeSIN, XSP | 4 h 50 m no fares KTM · 4 km | 1 h 0 m €89-104 KUL · 45 km |
| New DelhiDEL | 1 h 40 m €175-205 KTM · 4 km | 5 h 15 m €325-356 KUL · 45 km |
| Hong KongHKG | 4 h 5 m no fares KTM · 4 km | 3 h 40 m €193-209 KUL · 45 km |
| GuangzhouCAN | 4 h 0 m €434-523 1 stop KTM · 4 km | 3 h 45 m €190-211 KUL · 45 km |
| ChengduTFU, CTU | 2 h 50 m no fares KTM · 4 km | 4 h 15 m €266-294 1 stop KUL · 45 km |
| ShanghaiPVG, SHA | 4 h 50 m no fares KTM · 4 km | 5 h 10 m €203-227 KUL · 45 km |
| TokyoHND, NRT | 6 h 45 m no fares KTM · 4 km | 7 h 0 m no fares KUL · 45 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 4 h 10 m €400-446 KTM · 4 km | 7 h 10 m no fares KUL · 45 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 6 h 55 m €583-665 1 stop KTM · 4 km | 10 h 30 m no fares KUL · 45 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 2026-10 to 2026-12, 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
| Measure | Kathmandu | Kuala Lumpur |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Nepali | Malay |
| Currency | Nepalese Rupee (NPR) | Malaysian Ringgit (MYR) |
| Sockets | CM230 V, 50 Hz | G240 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Left | Left |
| Time zone | UTC+5:45 | UTC+8 |
| Emergency number | Police 100, ambulance 102, fire 101 | 999 |
| Elevation | 1,300 m | 50 m |
| Main airport | Tribhuvan International Airport (KTM)4 km from centre38 non-stop destinations | Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KUL)45 km from centre146 non-stop destinations |
By the numbers
| Measure | Kathmandu | Kuala Lumpur |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 845,767 | 9,000,280 |
| People per km² | 17,121 | 36,932 |
| Museums within 10 km | 9 | 25 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 1 | 1 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | - | 12 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Kathmandu or Kuala Lumpur somewhere new.