VacationSelector
Bougainvillea and the dome of Agia Napa Cathedral, Limassol
LimassolBougainvillea and the dome of Agia Napa Cathedral
A madrasa and its minarets on the Registan, Samarkand
SamarkandA madrasa and its minarets on the Registan

Photos: Limassol by Julian Lupyan, CC0; Samarkand by Yaşar Başkurt, Pexels License.

Limassol 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 Limassol for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • families

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

Choose Samarkand for

  • culture and sights
  • prices
  • getting around

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. Limassol 77, Samarkand 4: Limassol leads by 73 points.
Food & drink. Limassol 58, Samarkand 54: Limassol leads by 4 points.
Culture & sights. Limassol 38, Samarkand 84: Samarkand leads by 46 points.
Nightlife. Limassol 50, Samarkand 14: Limassol leads by 36 points.
Nature & outdoors. Limassol 65, Samarkand 40: Limassol leads by 25 points.
Day trips. Limassol 76, Samarkand 72: Limassol leads by 4 points.
Good for families. Limassol 63, Samarkand 30: Limassol leads by 33 points.
Getting around. Limassol 38, Samarkand 58: Samarkand leads by 20 points.
Shopping & style. Limassol and Samarkand are level on 42.
Affordability. Limassol 44, Samarkand 80: Samarkand leads by 36 points.
Live music & performing arts. Limassol 32, Samarkand 24: Limassol leads by 8 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Limassol 42, Samarkand 32: Limassol leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Limassol and Samarkand.

Your match

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

Limassol
Best match
52match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Samarkand
45match

Wins on culture and sights and prices with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Limassol in July

31 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
13 hsunshine a day
26 °Csea
14 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

020406080100JFMAMJJASOND
LimassolSamarkand

Where the figures come from

Limassol 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.

Limassol's sunshine is measured 59 km from the centre, at Larnaca Airport.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Limassol: 1998-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Akrotiri (11.6 km from centre). Samarkand: 1991-2020 normals, Samarkand (10 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLimassolSamarkand
Official languageTurkish, Greek, Modern GreekUzbek
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Uzbekistan Sum (UZS)
SocketsG240 V, 50 HzCFI220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+2, UTC+3 in summerUTC+5
Emergency number112112
Elevation10 m702 m
Main airportLarnaca International Airport (LCA)58 km from centre112 non-stop destinationsSamarkand International Airport (SKD)5 km from centre29 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year17 days-

By the numbers

MeasureLimassolSamarkand
City population107,970546,303
People per km²2,4055,058
Museums within 10 km211
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km31
Swim season, months above 21 °C6 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Limassol 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). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

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.