Ljubljana or Zagreb?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Too close to call, level with your weighting
Wins on museums & heritage and good for families with your weighting.
Wins on nightlife and value for money 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 Ljubljana if museums and heritage matter, with 3 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, more protected land around the city and about twice as many attractions near the centre for children.
Choose Zagreb if you want the bigger night out, with about twice as many places to drink and more nightclubs, plus drier winters and springs.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Ljubljana and Zagreb are level on 0.
| Ljubljana | Zagreb | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 10 | 8 |
| Coast distance | 72 km | 117 km |
| Water distance | — | — |
Places to eat. Ljubljana leads by 3 points.3
| Ljubljana | Zagreb | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 55 | 52 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 292 | 374 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 40 | 27 |
Museums & heritage. Ljubljana leads by 10 points.10
| Ljubljana | Zagreb | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 55 | 45 |
| Museums within 10 km | 26 | 41 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 23 | 40 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 88 | 98 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 3 | 0 |
Nightlife. Zagreb leads by 16 points.16
| Ljubljana | Zagreb | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 45 | 61 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 458 | 1,009 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 284 | 571 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 62 | 57 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 24 | 63 |
Nature & day trips. Ljubljana leads by 6 points.6
| Ljubljana | Zagreb | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 40 | 34 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 13 | 9 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 5 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 75 hectares | 52 hectares |
Good for families. Ljubljana leads by 10 points.10
| Ljubljana | Zagreb | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 38 | 28 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 12 | 7 |
| Park area within 2 km | 75 hectares | 52 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 0 | 0 |
Sights concentration. Zagreb leads by 2 points.2
| Ljubljana | Zagreb | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 58 | 60 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 109 | 122 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Zagreb leads by 8 points.8
| Ljubljana | Zagreb | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 72 | 80 |
| Price level global | 59.6 | 48.5 |
| Daily budget | €131 | €138 |
Year-round weather. Zagreb leads by 6 points.6
| Ljubljana | Zagreb | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 56 | 62 |
| Monthly daytime high | 4.1 °C to 27.9 °C | 5.4 °C to 28.5 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 67 mm to 159 mm | 47 mm to 104 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 0 |
Where they differ
Ljubljana's heritage advantage lies in reach: 3 UNESCO-listed places sit within day-trip range where Zagreb has none, and 13% of the surrounding land is protected against 9% around Zagreb. It also has about twice as many tourist attractions near the centre and more park space; neither city has a theme park.
Zagreb has about twice as many places to drink and three times as many nightclubs, and more museums, though only about half of its nightlife sits near the centre, where Ljubljana's is concentrated.
Where they are alike
Neither is a swimming destination. Ljubljana counts 10 beaches nearby and Zagreb 8, but neither city has a month with sea at 21°C or more, so a trip built around swimming is out of reach in both.
Both centres are compact: each has about as many notable places within walking distance as the other. Eating out is comparable too, with somewhat more restaurants near Zagreb's centre and a somewhat wider range of kitchens in Ljubljana.
Which traveller are you?
Anyone travelling for the nights out should take Zagreb: about twice as many places to drink and three times as many nightclubs, though half of it sits away from the centre, so expect to move around.
Families are better served in Ljubljana, with about twice as many tourist attractions near the centre and more park space within walking range. Neither city has a theme park, so plan around parks and streets.
Day-trippers and heritage travellers should choose Ljubljana: 3 UNESCO-listed places within reach where Zagreb has none, and more protected land around it than Zagreb has. Zagreb answers with more museums inside the city.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €131 and €138, are national price levels for restaurants and hotels, not measurements of either city. A capital can sit some way from its own country average, and that distance can exceed the gap between the two figures, so neither number tells you which city will cost more.
Both cities count beaches nearby, but neither has a month with sea at 21°C or more, so those are not seaside swims. And the warmest months are also the wettest: Ljubljana's rain rises through summer to 159mm in September, so a well-ranked month is not a dry one.
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. Ljubljana: 1991-2020 normals, Ljubljana / Bezigrad (1.9 km from centre). Zagreb: 1991-2020 normals, Zagreb / Gric (0.6 km from centre).
Ljubljana is at its best from June to August, with highs of 26-28°C, though rain is heavy through the summer and peaks at 159mm in September.
Zagreb is drier in every month and marginally warmer, with highs of 23-29°C from May to August against 76-90mm of rain. Winter and early spring are the driest stretch, near 47-49mm a month, though highs of 5-13°C make that a city-centre trip rather than an outdoor one.
Getting there
| Flying from | Ljubljana | Zagreb |
|---|---|---|
| DubrovnikDBV | 1 h 10 m no fares ZAG · 126 km | 1 h 10 m no fares ZAG · 11 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 2 h 10 m €188-190 LJU · 20 km | 2 h 0 m €153-254 ZAG · 11 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 1 h 25 m no fares LJU · 20 km | 1 h 30 m no fares ZAG · 11 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 10 m no fares TRS · 84 km | 1 h 20 m no fares ZAG · 11 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 2 h 5 m no fares LJU · 20 km | 2 h 15 m no fares ZAG · 11 km |
| SplitSPU | 55 m no fares ZAG · 126 km | 55 m no fares ZAG · 11 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 45 m €139-178 1 stop LJU · 20 km | 1 h 55 m no fares ZAG · 11 km |
| DohaDOH | 5 h 15 m no fares ZAG · 126 km | 5 h 15 m no fares ZAG · 11 km |
| BishkekBSZ | 6 h 0 m no fares ZAG · 126 km | 6 h 0 m no fares ZAG · 11 km |
| TorontoYYZ, YHM, YTZ | 9 h 0 m no fares ZAG · 126 km | 9 h 0 m no fares ZAG · 11 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 | Ljubljana | Zagreb |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Slovene | 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 | 309 m | 127 m |
| Main airport | Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport (LJU)20 km from centre28 non-stop destinations | Zagreb Franjo Tuđman International Airport (ZAG)11 km from centre60 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 21 days | 14 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Ljubljana | Zagreb |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 284,293 | 767,131 |
| People per km² | 1,736 | – |
| Museums within 10 km | 14 | 27 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 3 | 0 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 63 | 42 |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Ljubljana or Zagreb somewhere new.