Los Angeles or Mexico City?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on beaches & swimming with your weighting.
Wins on value for money and museums & heritage with your weighting.
What matters to you?
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Los Angeles leads by 29 points.29
| Los Angeles | Mexico City | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 29 | 0 |
| Beaches 25 km | 11 | — |
| Beaches 10 km | 0 | 4 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Warmest sea temp | 20.2 °C | — |
| Scoring variant | beachScoreWideRing | — |
| Declared | 2026-08-25 | — |
| Register | seed/editorial-overrides.json | — |
| Coast distance | — | 247 km |
| Water distance | — | — |
Places to eat. Los Angeles and Mexico City are level on 66.
| Los Angeles | Mexico City | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 66 | 66 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 1,337 | 2,179 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 22 | 15 |
Museums & heritage. Mexico City leads by 30 points.30
| Los Angeles | Mexico City | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 49 | 79 |
| Museums within 10 km | 69 | 138 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 23 | 65 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 33 | 47 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 1 | 6 |
Nightlife. Mexico City leads by 24 points.24
| Los Angeles | Mexico City | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 54 | 78 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 660 | 2,156 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 432 | 926 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 65 | 43 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 64 | 198 |
Nature & day trips. Mexico City leads by 1 points.1
| Los Angeles | Mexico City | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 63 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 26 | 30 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 80 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 20 hectares | 32 hectares |
Good for families. Mexico City leads by 17 points.17
| Los Angeles | Mexico City | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 33 | 50 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 11 | 23 |
| Park area within 2 km | 20 hectares | 32 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 2 | 4 |
Sights concentration. Los Angeles and Mexico City are level on 54.
| Los Angeles | Mexico City | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 54 | 54 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 88 | 88 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Mexico City leads by 33 points.33
| Los Angeles | Mexico City | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 43 | 76 |
| Price level global | 100 | 54.2 |
| Daily budget | — | — |
Year-round weather. Mexico City leads by 3 points.3
| Los Angeles | Mexico City | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 87 | 90 |
| Monthly daytime high | 18.6 °C to 24.7 °C | 22.2 °C to 27.9 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 0 mm to 76 mm | 3 mm to 186 mm |
| Dry months | 8 | 6 |
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. Los Angeles: 1991-2020 normals, Los Angeles Airport (18.5 km from centre). Mexico City: 1991-2020 normals, Mexico Central, D. F. (7.9 km from centre).
Getting there
| Flying from | Los Angeles | Mexico City |
|---|---|---|
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 5 h 20 m no fares LAX · 19 km | 4 h 40 m €335-379 MEX · 7 km |
| Las VegasLAS | 1 h 5 m no fares LAX · 19 km | 3 h 30 m no fares MEX · 7 km |
| ChicagoORD, MDW, DPA, PWK +1 | 4 h 0 m no fares LAX · 19 km | 3 h 50 m €259-271 MEX · 7 km |
| San Jose Del CaboSJD | 2 h 25 m no fares LAX · 19 km | 2 h 5 m no fares MEX · 7 km |
| San FranciscoSFO | 1 h 20 m no fares LAX · 19 km | 4 h 15 m no fares MEX · 7 km |
| GuadalajaraGDL | 3 h 10 m no fares LAX · 19 km | 1 h 10 m no fares MEX · 7 km |
| Puerto VallartaPVR | 3 h 0 m no fares LAX · 19 km | 1 h 25 m no fares MEX · 7 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 11 h 25 m €600-640 1 stop LAX · 19 km | 11 h 30 m no fares MEX · 7 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 16 h 25 m €964-1015 LAX · 19 km | 17 h 30 m €1,075-1211 2 stops MEX · 7 km |
| BeijingPEK, PKX | 12 h 30 m no fares LAX · 19 km | 15 h 20 m €1,089-1205 3 stops MEX · 7 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 2026-09 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 | Los Angeles | Mexico City |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | – | Spanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya |
| Currency | US Dollar (USD) | Mexican Peso (MXN) |
| Sockets | AB120 V, 60 Hz | AB127 V, 60 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer | UTC-6 |
| Emergency number | 911 | 911 |
| Elevation | 106 m | 2,240 m |
| Main airport | Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)19 km from centre180 non-stop destinations | Mexico City Benito Juárez International Airport (MEX)7 km from centre95 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 13 days | 9 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Los Angeles | Mexico City |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 3,898,747 | 9,209,944 |
| People per km² | 2,994 | 6,202 |
| Museums within 10 km | 38 | 108 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 1 | 6 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 46 | 50 |
| 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 Los Angeles or Mexico City somewhere new.