VacationSelector
The pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto
KyotoThe pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera
Taipei 101 and the skyline from Elephant Mountain, Taipei
TaipeiTaipei 101 and the skyline from Elephant Mountain

Photos: Kyoto by Bert Mulder, Pexels License; Taipei by Another Believer, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Kyoto or Taipei?

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 Kyoto for

  • culture and sights
  • day trips
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose Taipei for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Taipei’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. Kyoto 15, Taipei 40: Taipei leads by 25 points.
Food & drink. Kyoto 85, Taipei 88: Taipei leads by 3 points.
Culture & sights. Kyoto 96, Taipei 68: Kyoto leads by 28 points.
Nightlife. Kyoto 35, Taipei 58: Taipei leads by 23 points.
Nature & outdoors. Kyoto 70, Taipei 78: Taipei leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Kyoto 96, Taipei 76: Kyoto leads by 20 points.
Good for families. Kyoto 68, Taipei 72: Taipei leads by 4 points.
Getting around. Kyoto 72, Taipei 86: Taipei leads by 14 points.
Shopping & style. Kyoto 72, Taipei 70: Kyoto leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Kyoto 50, Taipei 66: Taipei leads by 16 points.
Live music & performing arts. Kyoto 60, Taipei 55: Kyoto leads by 5 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Kyoto 70, Taipei 80: Taipei leads by 10 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Kyoto
66match

Wins on culture and sights and day trips with your weighting.

Taipei
Best match
70match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Kyoto in July

31 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
225 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Taipei in July

35 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
288 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
KyotoTaipei

Where the figures come from

Kyoto's sunshine is measured 43 km from the centre, at Osaka.

Taipei 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.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Kyoto: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1991-2020) normals, Kyoto (3.2 km from centre). Taipei: 1992-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Sungshan / Taipei (3.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureKyotoTaipei
Official languageJapaneseTaiwanese Sign Language, Amis, Taiwanese Hokkien, Rukai, Bunun, Kanakanavu, Standard Taiwanese Mandarin, Paiwan, Yami, Atayal, Saaroa, Kavalan, Tsou, Seediq, Puyuma, Saisiyat, Sakizaya, Taiwanese Hakka, Truku, Matsu dialect, Kinmen dialect, Wuqiu dialect
CurrencyYen (JPY)New Taiwan Dollar (TWD)
SocketsAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the regionAB110 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+9UTC+8
Emergency numberPolice 110, fire 119110 or 112 or 119
Elevation51 m10 m
Main airportKansai International Airport (KIX)81 km from centre62 non-stop destinationsTaiwan Taoyuan International Airport (TPE)33 km from centre
Public holidays this year16 days-

By the numbers

MeasureKyotoTaipei
City population1,463,7232,429,429
People per km²1,7688,938
Museums within 10 km7769
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km40
Swim season, months above 21 °C5 months8 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Kyoto or Taipei 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.