London or New York?
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, 2 points apart
Wins on sights concentration and museums & heritage with your weighting.
Wins on beaches & swimming 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 London if the trip is about walking between sights and museums: more of what you want to see sits within walking distance of the centre, and 4 UNESCO-listed places lie within day-trip reach.
Choose New York if you want summer heat and swimming: highs reach 30°C in July and the sea stays warm from July to September, alongside the wider choice of restaurants.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. New York leads by 64 points.64
| London | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 64 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 3 |
| Beaches 10 km | 47 | 17 |
| Coast distance | 43 km | 1 km |
| Water distance | — | 1 km |
Places to eat. New York leads by 7 points.7
| London | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 88 | 95 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 3,317 | 6,032 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 40 | 38 |
Museums & heritage. London leads by 12 points.12
| London | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 72 | 60 |
| Museums within 10 km | 148 | 119 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 49 | 31 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 33 | 26 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 4 | 2 |
Nightlife. London leads by 6 points.6
| London | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 95 | 89 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 5,327 | 4,159 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 2,443 | 2,015 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 46 | 48 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 312 | 192 |
Nature & day trips. London leads by 1 points.1
| London | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 40 | 39 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 16 | 4 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 14 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 97 | 69 |
| Park area within 2 km | 84 hectares | 134 hectares |
Good for families. London leads by 3 points.3
| London | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 75 | 72 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 85 | 37 |
| Park area within 2 km | 84 hectares | 134 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 3 | 7 |
Sights concentration. London leads by 15 points.15
| London | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 89 | 74 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 649 | 268 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. London leads by 11 points.11
| London | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 54 | 43 |
| Price level global | 84.9 | 100 |
| Daily budget | — | — |
Year-round weather. London leads by 5 points.5
| London | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 63 | 58 |
| Monthly daytime high | 8.2 °C to 23.8 °C | 4.5 °C to 30.1 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 38 mm to 67 mm | 74 mm to 112 mm |
| Dry months | 1 | 0 |
Where they differ
London puts about twice as many notable places within walking distance of the centre, so whole days work on foot. It also has somewhat more museums, and 4 UNESCO-listed sites within day-trip reach against New York's 2.
New York has the usable swimming season: sea at 23°C in August and 21°C or more for three months. London counts 47 beaches nearby against 17, but none with sea warm enough to swim in. New York also has about twice as many restaurants near the centre.
Where they are alike
Nature is where the two land level. Neither is a strong base for countryside days: London has more protected land around it, 16% against 4%, while New York has more park space near the centre.
They are also close on families and on the year-round climate. Both have attractions, parks and theme parks for children, and both run a full four-season year, London 8-24°C against New York 5-30°C, with little warmth outside summer.
Which traveller are you?
The museum-minded walker should take London. More of what you would want to see sits within walking distance of the centre, museums are more numerous, and 4 UNESCO-listed places lie within day-trip reach against 2.
Families chasing a summer holiday do better in New York: 7 theme parks within reach against 3, more park space near the centre, and sea at 23°C in August for swimming.
Anyone travelling to eat and drink can go either way. New York has about twice as many restaurants near the centre; London has more places to drink and roughly twice as many nightclubs, about half of them central.
What the numbers don't tell you
No cost comparison is possible here. The dataset carries no daily budget figure for either city, so nothing on this page tells you which trip is cheaper, and the value ranking rests on a different measure that should not be read as a price.
The sunshine figure is missing for New York: no nearby station records it, so that side of the weather comparison is unmeasured rather than poor, and its monthly picture rests on temperature, rainfall and sea alone. London's 47 nearby beaches also count for little, as the sea never warms enough to swim in.
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. London: 1991-2020 normals, London Heathrow Airport (22.5 km from centre). New York: 1991-2020 normals, LaGuardia Airport (12.9 km from centre).
London is at its best from June to August, with highs of 22-24°C and around 46-47mm of rain a month, its lightest spell. March is drier at 38mm but only 12°C. January and February sit at 8-9°C.
New York peaks in June and September, 27°C and 25°C, with the sea at 21°C in September. July and August are hotter at 29-30°C but also the wettest, 107-112mm. Rain never drops below 74mm in any month, so pack for it.
Getting there
| Flying from | London | New York |
|---|---|---|
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 5 m €92-144 LHR · 23 km | 7 h 30 m €445-517 JFK · 21 km |
| MilanMXP, BGY, LIN | 1 h 45 m €83-138 LGW · 40 km | 8 h 15 m €430-458 JFK · 21 km |
| MadridMAD | 2 h 10 m €124-216 LHR · 23 km | 7 h 25 m €474-553 1 stop JFK · 21 km |
| ChicagoORD, MDW, DPA, PWK +1 | 8 h 10 m no fares LHR · 23 km | 2 h 5 m €236-237 LGA · 13 km |
| WashingtonIAD, DCA | 7 h 35 m no fares LHR · 23 km | 1 h 5 m €203-258 LGA · 13 km |
| RaleighRDU | 8 h 0 m no fares LHR · 23 km | 1 h 30 m €201-279 1 stop LGA · 13 km |
| MalagaAGP | 2 h 35 m €119-292 1 stop LGW · 40 km | 7 h 35 m no fares EWR · 14 km |
| MarrakechRAK | 3 h 20 m €128-183 1 stop LGW · 40 km | 7 h 35 m no fares EWR · 14 km |
| Mexico CityMEX, NLU, TLC | 11 h 10 m no fares LHR · 23 km | 4 h 40 m €374-446 1 stop JFK · 21 km |
| TokyoHND, NRT | 11 h 55 m no fares LHR · 23 km | 13 h 30 m €989-1136 JFK · 21 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 | London | New York |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | English | – |
| Currency | Pound Sterling (GBP) | US Dollar (USD) |
| Sockets | G230 V, 50 Hz | AB120 V, 60 Hz |
| Driving side | Left | Right |
| Time zone | UTC, UTC+1 in summer | UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 or 999 | 911 |
| Elevation | 4 m | 25 m |
| Main airport | London Heathrow Airport (LHR)23 km from centre220 non-stop destinations | John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)21 km from centre188 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 8 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | London | New York |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 8,799,728 | 8,804,190 |
| People per km² | 5,598 | 7,256 |
| Museums within 10 km | 215 | 157 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 4 | 2 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 116 | 132 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | – | 3 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow London or New York somewhere new.