London or The Hague?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on nightlife and sights concentration with your weighting.
Wins on beaches & swimming and nature & day trips 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 you want density and late nights: a large share of what you would visit sits within walking distance of the centre, and the eating and drinking options run far deeper.
Choose The Hague if you want the coast in the trip, with sea at 19°C in August, more park space near the centre and 7 theme parks within reach.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. The Hague leads by 60 points.60
| London | The Hague | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 60 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 47 | 34 |
| Coast distance | 43 km | 3 km |
| Water distance | — | 3 km |
Places to eat. London leads by 18 points.18
| London | The Hague | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 88 | 70 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 3,317 | 798 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 40 | 43 |
Museums & heritage. London leads by 10 points.10
| London | The Hague | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 72 | 62 |
| Museums within 10 km | 148 | 46 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 49 | 26 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 33 | 57 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 4 | 4 |
Nightlife. London leads by 49 points.49
| London | The Hague | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 95 | 46 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 5,327 | 511 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 2,443 | 288 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 46 | 56 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 312 | 19 |
Nature & day trips. The Hague leads by 14 points.14
| London | The Hague | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 40 | 54 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 16 | 8 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 14 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 97 | 56 |
| Park area within 2 km | 84 hectares | 159 hectares |
Good for families. London leads by 19 points.19
| London | The Hague | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 75 | 56 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 85 | 10 |
| Park area within 2 km | 84 hectares | 159 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 3 | 7 |
Sights concentration. London leads by 35 points.35
| London | The Hague | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 89 | 54 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 649 | 86 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. The Hague leads by 4 points.4
| London | The Hague | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 54 | 58 |
| Price level global | 84.9 | 79.2 |
| Daily budget | — | €181 |
Year-round weather. London leads by 9 points.9
| London | The Hague | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 63 | 54 |
| Monthly daytime high | 8.2 °C to 23.8 °C | 6.1 °C to 21.3 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 38 mm to 67 mm | 42 mm to 85 mm |
| Dry months | 1 | 0 |
Where they differ
London is the stronger choice for going out, with many times as many bars and clubs, about half of them near the centre, and many times as many notable places within walking distance. Restaurants near the centre are far more numerous too, though both cover a similar range of kitchens.
The Hague puts the sea within reach, with water at 19°C in August, while sea swimming is not part of a London trip. Neither city has a month with the sea at 21°C or more.
Where they are alike
Value for money is where they sit closest. Neither stands out against the other, so it is not the axis that should decide the trip.
Weather and heritage also land near each other. Both run mild rather than hot, with highs of 8-24°C in London and 6-21°C in The Hague, and rain in every month. Each has 4 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, though The Hague's museums are packed more tightly around the centre.
Which traveller are you?
Anyone travelling for the evenings should take London. It has many times as many bars and clubs, a far deeper choice of restaurants, and enough notable places within walking distance of the centre that a short trip covers a lot on foot.
Families with younger children are better served by The Hague: about twice as much park space near the centre, 7 theme parks within reach against London's 3, and the sea close enough to use.
Museum-minded travellers who also want countryside should choose London, with far more museums and 16% of the surrounding land protected against 8% around The Hague; both have 4 UNESCO-listed places in day-trip range.
What the numbers don't tell you
No daily cost figure exists for London in this data, only for The Hague, so the two cannot be compared on price at all, and the value axis rests on a different measure entirely. Read it as a ranking of something other than what a day will cost you.
Beach counts mislead here. London is listed with 47 beaches nearby against The Hague's 34, yet it is The Hague where swimming is realistic, and even there the two warmest sea months are also the wettest, at 84-85mm. Neither city has a month with the sea at 21°C or more.
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). The Hague: 1991-2020 normals, Valkenburg (13.6 km from centre).
London peaks from June to August, with highs of 22-24°C and monthly rain of 46-47mm, drier than The Hague at the same time. March, at 38mm, is the least wet month either city offers.
The Hague is best in July and August, highs of 21°C and sea at 18-19°C, but those are also its wettest months, at 84-85mm. April is its driest, at 42mm. Either way, the shoulder months are cooler and wetter, and the gap in rain widens in autumn.
Getting there
| Flying from | London | The Hague |
|---|---|---|
| MadridMAD | 2 h 10 m €124-216 LHR · 23 km | 2 h 25 m €160-183 AMS · 40 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 5 m €92-144 LHR · 23 km | 1 h 10 m €178-300 AMS · 40 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 7 h 10 m €518-651 1 stop LHR · 23 km | 7 h 35 m €512-556 1 stop AMS · 40 km |
| DublinDUB | 1 h 10 m no fares LHR · 23 km | 1 h 35 m €69-96 AMS · 40 km |
| CopenhagenCPH | 1 h 50 m no fares LHR · 23 km | 1 h 25 m €171-212 1 stop AMS · 40 km |
| ManchesterMAN | 55 m no fares LHR · 23 km | 1 h 15 m €145-187 AMS · 40 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 7 h 10 m no fares LHR · 23 km | 6 h 45 m €318-346 1 stop AMS · 40 km |
| StockholmARN, BMA, NYO, VST | 2 h 25 m no fares LHR · 23 km | 2 h 0 m €156-208 AMS · 40 km |
| ShanghaiPVG, SHA | 11 h 30 m €665-831 1 stop LHR · 23 km | 11 h 10 m no fares AMS · 40 km |
| CancunCUN | 10 h 5 m no fares LGW · 40 km | 10 h 25 m no fares AMS · 40 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 | The Hague |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | English | Dutch |
| Currency | Pound Sterling (GBP) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | G230 V, 50 Hz | CF230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Left | Right |
| Time zone | UTC, UTC+1 in summer | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 or 999 | 112 or 911 |
| Elevation | 4 m | 1 m |
| Main airport | London Heathrow Airport (LHR)23 km from centre220 non-stop destinations | Rotterdam The Hague Airport (RTM)16 km from centre45 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 8 days | 11 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | London | The Hague |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 8,799,728 | 548,320 |
| People per km² | 5,598 | 5,589 |
| Museums within 10 km | 215 | 54 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 4 | 4 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 116 | 77 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | – | None |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow London or The Hague somewhere new.