Kotor or Split?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on value for money and beaches & swimming with your weighting.
Wins on nightlife and museums & heritage with your weighting.
What matters to you?
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.
The verdict
Choose Kotor if the trip is built around swimming and heat: it runs warmer in summer, the sea stays comfortable a month longer than in Split, and evenings are quiet, with very little in the way of bars or clubs.
Choose Split if you want museums, walkable streets of notable buildings, park space near the centre and somewhere to go after dinner.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Kotor leads by 4 points.4
| Kotor | Split | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 77 | 73 |
| Swim season months | 5 | 4 |
| Beaches 10 km | 50 | 87 |
| Coast distance | 0 km | 0 km |
| Water distance | 0 km | 0 km |
Places to eat. Split leads by 12 points.12
| Kotor | Split | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 26 | 38 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 71 | 268 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 19 | 15 |
Museums & heritage. Split leads by 24 points.24
| Kotor | Split | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 28 | 52 |
| Museums within 10 km | 7 | 18 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 3 | 16 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 43 | 89 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 3 | 4 |
Nightlife. Split leads by 37 points.37
| Kotor | Split | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 4 | 41 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 46 | 379 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 38 | 263 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 83 | 69 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 3 | 23 |
Nature & day trips. Split leads by 23 points.23
| Kotor | Split | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 15 | 38 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 10 | 9 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 5 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 66 | 62 |
| Park area within 2 km | 2 hectares | 30 hectares |
Good for families. Split leads by 17 points.17
| Kotor | Split | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 9 | 26 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 8 | 9 |
| Park area within 2 km | 2 hectares | 30 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 0 | 0 |
Sights concentration. Split leads by 21 points.21
| Kotor | Split | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 21 | 42 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 13 | 43 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Kotor leads by 7 points.7
| Kotor | Split | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 87 | 80 |
| Price level global | 38.9 | 48.5 |
| Daily budget | €95 | €138 |
Year-round weather. Split leads by 8 points.8
| Kotor | Split | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 61 | 69 |
| Monthly daytime high | 10.5 °C to 33.2 °C | 10.7 °C to 31 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 38 mm to 256 mm | 25 mm to 117 mm |
| Dry months | 1 | 2 |
Where they differ
Kotor is the warmer of the two in high summer, reaching 33°C against Split's 31°C, and its sea holds at 21°C or more a month longer into autumn. It also offers a somewhat wider range of kitchens.
Split has many times as many bars and clubs, roughly three times as many museums, and far more notable buildings within walking distance of the centre. It also has much more park space near the centre and 4 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Kotor's 3.
Where they are alike
Both sit on the water, with the sea 0km from either centre, and both have a real summer swimming season: August is the warmest month for the sea in each, at 26°C in Kotor and 25°C in Split. Neither is short of beaches within reach.
Their weather years also track each other closely: January is the coolest month in both, at 11°C. Both sit in countries whose national price estimates fall in a similar range.
Which traveller are you?
A swimmer planning a beach fortnight will do slightly better in Kotor: the sea is 0km from the centre, stays at 21°C or more a month longer, and reaches 26°C in August.
Anyone travelling for museums and old buildings should pick Split: roughly three times as many museums, far more notable places within walking distance of the centre, and 4 UNESCO-listed sites within day-trip reach.
Families, and anyone who wants evenings out, will also find more in Split, with much more park space near the centre and many more bars and clubs. Neither has a theme park within reach.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €95 and €138, are national estimates for each country, not measurements of either city. A heavily visited coastal city can sit well above its own country's average, by more than the gap between the two figures, so they say nothing firm about what either trip costs.
A strong beach picture also hides its timing. Kotor's best sea months arrive with 33°C days, and the season closes with 173mm of rain in September, so the swimming window is narrower in practice than the beach count suggests.
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.
Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Kotor: 1991-2020 normals, Podgorica / Golubovci (39.9 km from centre). Split: 1991-2020 normals, Split / Marjan (0.9 km from centre).
Kotor is at its best in May and June, with highs of 24°C then 30°C and rain easing to 56mm. July and August are the hottest, at 33°C, with the sea at 26°C; September still swims well but turns wet, at 173mm.
Split's window is longer and drier. June to September holds 25-31°C, and rain stays lower throughout, 25mm in July and 82mm in September. Its late-autumn rain is lighter too, which makes October and November more usable.
Getting there
| Flying from | Kotor | Split |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 2 h 45 m €246-282 1 stop TIV · 5 km | 2 h 30 m €88-160 SPU · 12 km |
| BelgradeBEG | 1 h 0 m €108-150 TIV · 5 km | 1 h 5 m €195-240 1 stop SPU · 12 km |
| ViennaVIE | 1 h 30 m €179-223 TGD · 40 km | 1 h 15 m €233-281 SPU · 12 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 2 h 0 m €181-222 1 stop DBV · 44 km | 1 h 45 m €169-224 SPU · 12 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 15 m €55-130 DBV · 44 km | 1 h 5 m €294 SPU · 12 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 2 h 25 m €182-228 1 stop DBV · 44 km | 2 h 10 m €186-201 1 stop SPU · 12 km |
| DublinDUB | 3 h 15 m €135-178 2 stops DBV · 44 km | 3 h 0 m no fares SPU · 12 km |
| MunichMUC | 1 h 40 m €240-268 DBV · 44 km | 1 h 25 m no fares SPU · 12 km |
| ZagrebZAG | 1 h 10 m no fares TGD · 40 km | 55 m no fares SPU · 12 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 9 h 10 m no fares DBV · 44 km | 9 h 0 m no fares SPU · 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. 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
| Measure | Kotor | Split |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Montenegrin | Croatian |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CF230 V, 50 Hz | CF230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 | 112 |
| Elevation | 10 m | 0 m |
| Main airport | Tivat Airport (TIV)5 km from centre41 non-stop destinations | Split Saint Jerome Airport (SPU)12 km from centre70 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | – | 14 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Kotor | Split |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 562 | 160,577 |
| Museums within 10 km | 3 | 11 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 3 | 4 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 27 | 31 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 5 months | 4 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Kotor or Split somewhere new.