Lisbon or Barcelona?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on nature & day trips and good for families with your weighting.
Wins on nightlife and places to eat 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 Barcelona if eating out and going out are the point, and if you want a sea warm enough to swim in, up to 25°C at the peak of summer.
Choose Lisbon if you would rather have museums, parks near the centre and open country within reach, and a summer that stays almost rainless; its evenings are quieter than Barcelona's.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Barcelona leads by 8 points.8
| Lisbon | Barcelona | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 57 | 65 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 3 |
| Beaches 10 km | 24 | 20 |
| Coast distance | 2 km | 2 km |
| Water distance | 2 km | 2 km |
Places to eat. Barcelona leads by 10 points.10
| Lisbon | Barcelona | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 80 | 90 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 2,496 | 3,786 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 31 | 41 |
Museums & heritage. Lisbon leads by 2 points.2
| Lisbon | Barcelona | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 70 | 68 |
| Museums within 10 km | 124 | 105 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 54 | 49 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 44 | 47 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 3 | 3 |
Nightlife. Barcelona leads by 17 points.17
| Lisbon | Barcelona | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 65 | 82 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 1,225 | 2,711 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 956 | 1,641 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 78 | 61 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 65 | 245 |
Nature & day trips. Lisbon leads by 6 points.6
| Lisbon | Barcelona | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 56 | 50 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 11 | 10 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 54 | 51 |
| Park area within 2 km | 77 hectares | 49 hectares |
Good for families. Lisbon leads by 4 points.4
| Lisbon | Barcelona | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 69 | 65 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 82 | 60 |
| Park area within 2 km | 77 hectares | 49 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 1 | 3 |
Sights concentration. Barcelona leads by 7 points.7
| Lisbon | Barcelona | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 66 | 73 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 169 | 258 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Lisbon leads by 3 points.3
| Lisbon | Barcelona | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 74 | 71 |
| Price level global | 55.9 | 60.8 |
| Daily budget | €109 | €122 |
Year-round weather. Lisbon and Barcelona are level on 78.
| Lisbon | Barcelona | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 78 | 78 |
| Monthly daytime high | 14.9 °C to 28.4 °C | 13.9 °C to 28.9 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 3 mm to 121 mm | 27 mm to 83 mm |
| Dry months | 4 | 5 |
Where they differ
Barcelona has about twice as many restaurants near the centre as Lisbon and a wider range of kitchens, twice as many bars and three times as many clubs, most of them central. The sea is 2km from both centres, but Barcelona has three months of sea at 21°C or more and Lisbon none.
Lisbon answers with about twice as much park space near the centre, more protected land nearby at 11% against 10%, and somewhat more attractions in easy reach; Barcelona holds three theme parks to Lisbon's one.
Where they are alike
Weather is where they match most closely. Both run daytime highs of roughly 14-29°C across the year, both peak in August and both bottom out in January at 14-15°C, and each has four or five months with 40mm of rain or less.
Heritage is close too: both put 3 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, though Lisbon has somewhat more museums. Families are catered for in both, Barcelona through theme parks and Lisbon through central parks and attractions.
Which traveller are you?
If eating and going out shape your trip, Barcelona: many more restaurants near the centre, a wider range of kitchens, about twice as many bars and three times as many clubs, nearly all central.
Swimmers should also pick Barcelona. The sea is 2km from both centres and Lisbon has slightly more beaches nearby, but its water tops out at 19°C while Barcelona reaches 25°C in August.
Families and slower travellers lean to Lisbon: more park space near the centre, somewhat more attractions close by, and slightly more protected land around the city, though Barcelona has three theme parks to Lisbon's one.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget, €122 for Spain and €109 for Portugal, is a national price level for restaurants and hotels, not a measurement of Barcelona or Lisbon. A capital or a heavily visited city can sit far above its own country's average, by more than the gap between these two figures, so this tells you little about what either trip will cost.
The strongest months are the same high summer weeks in both, which is also when heat and visitor numbers peak. Lisbon's larger number of nearby beaches sits alongside water that never passes 19°C, and Barcelona's warm early autumn is also its wettest stretch.
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. Lisbon: 1991-2020 normals, Lisboa / Geof (1.1 km from centre). Barcelona: 1991-2020 normals, Barcelona / Aeropuerto (14.4 km from centre).
Barcelona's window is June to September: highs of 26-29°C and a sea at 24-25°C at the peak. September stays warm but wet, at 83mm. For swimming, that summer stretch is the only part of the year that qualifies.
Lisbon's summer is similar in temperature at 26-28°C but far drier, 3mm in July, though the sea only reaches 19°C. Winter is the wetter of the two, above 100mm at either end of the year. If you are walking all day rather than swimming, that dryness matters more than the sea.
Getting there
| Flying from | Lisbon | Barcelona |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 2 h 30 m €112-185 LIS · 7 km | 2 h 0 m €37-96 BCN · 13 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 2 h 25 m €118-145 LIS · 7 km | 1 h 40 m €79-101 BCN · 13 km |
| MadridMAD | 1 h 15 m €64-74 LIS · 7 km | 1 h 15 m €114-118 BCN · 13 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 2 h 50 m €167-189 LIS · 7 km | 2 h 10 m €132-158 BCN · 13 km |
| MilanMXP, BGY, LIN | 2 h 35 m €124-144 LIS · 7 km | 1 h 30 m €33-92 BCN · 13 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 2 h 50 m €120-145 LIS · 7 km | 1 h 40 m €54-89 BCN · 13 km |
| PalmaPMI | 1 h 50 m no fares LIS · 7 km | 55 m €40-57 BCN · 13 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 7 h 0 m €621-718 1 stop LIS · 7 km | 7 h 55 m €562-701 BCN · 13 km |
| DohaDOH | 7 h 30 m no fares LIS · 7 km | 6 h 25 m €282-445 2 stops BCN · 13 km |
| SeoulICN, GMP | 12 h 55 m no fares LIS · 7 km | 11 h 55 m €459-799 2 stops BCN · 13 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 | Lisbon | Barcelona |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Portuguese | Spanish |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CF230 V, 50 Hz | CF230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC, UTC+1 in summer | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 | 112 |
| Elevation | 100 m | 9 m |
| Main airport | Lisbon Humberto Delgado Airport (LIS)7 km from centre153 non-stop destinations | Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport (BCN)13 km from centre229 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 14 days | 14 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Lisbon | Barcelona |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 545,796 | 1,731,649 |
| People per km² | 5,453 | 17,094 |
| Museums within 10 km | 78 | 95 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 3 | 3 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 106 | 128 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | None | 3 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Lisbon or Barcelona somewhere new.