Maastricht or Paris?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Has no clear advantage with the weighting you have chosen.
Wins on nightlife and sights concentration 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 Maastricht if you want a small city you can cross on foot, with theme parks and beaches within reach and the bars all in one compact centre.
Choose Paris if you want range: many times the restaurants and museums, nightlife spread well beyond the centre, and warmer summers, with highs of 26°C in July and August.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Maastricht and Paris are level on 0.
| Maastricht | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 6 | 2 |
| Coast distance | 118 km | 149 km |
| Water distance | — | — |
Places to eat. Paris leads by 42 points.42
| Maastricht | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 48 | 90 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 338 | 4,732 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 22 | 33 |
Museums & heritage. Paris leads by 23 points.23
| Maastricht | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 53 | 76 |
| Museums within 10 km | 23 | 185 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 13 | 65 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 57 | 35 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 5 | 4 |
Nightlife. Paris leads by 58 points.58
| Maastricht | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 30 | 88 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 223 | 3,796 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 182 | 1,694 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 82 | 45 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 13 | 201 |
Nature & day trips. Paris leads by 11 points.11
| Maastricht | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 37 | 48 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 19 | 28 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 11 | 26 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 33 hectares | 82 hectares |
Good for families. Paris leads by 29 points.29
| Maastricht | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 46 | 75 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 15 | 89 |
| Park area within 2 km | 33 hectares | 82 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 5 | 3 |
Sights concentration. Paris leads by 58 points.58
| Maastricht | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 36 | 94 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 32 | 865 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Paris leads by 4 points.4
| Maastricht | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 58 | 62 |
| Price level global | 79.2 | 73.7 |
| Daily budget | €181 | €160 |
Year-round weather. Paris leads by 7 points.7
| Maastricht | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 59 | 66 |
| Monthly daytime high | 5.7 °C to 23.8 °C | 7.8 °C to 26 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 41 mm to 84 mm | 38 mm to 75 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 1 |
Where they differ
Maastricht has 6 beaches nearby against Paris's 2, 5 theme parks within reach against 3, and 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against 4. Its bars and clubs sit almost entirely near the centre, so an evening out needs no planning.
Paris counts many times as many restaurants near the centre and a far wider range of kitchens, many times as many museums, and many times as many notable places within walking distance of the centre. Bars and clubs are far more numerous too, though only about half are central.
Where they are alike
Neither is a place to swim. Both sit inland, and neither records a month with sea at 21°C or more, so water is a side trip rather than the point of the holiday.
The rest of the overlap is climate and cost. Winter days are cool in both, with January highs of 6-8°C, and summers peak at 24-26°C. National daily estimates for the two countries are close, at €181 and €160. Both have protected countryside within day-trip reach.
Which traveller are you?
If you are going for museums and streets, Paris is the clear pick: many times as many museums, and many times as many notable places within walking distance of the centre, so days need little transport.
Families with young children may prefer Maastricht, with 5 theme parks within reach against Paris's 3 and 6 beaches nearby against 2, though Paris has far more attractions near the centre and about twice the park space.
For eating and going out, Paris again: far more restaurants, a wider range of kitchens, and many more bars and clubs, though only about half are central, so nights out involve some travel.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budgets, €181 and €160, are national estimates of restaurant and hotel prices, not measurements of either city. A capital and a small city can each sit far from their own national average, by more than the gap between these two figures, so they say little about what either trip actually costs.
The sunshine figure is missing for Paris: no nearby station records it, so that side of the weather comparison is unmeasured, and the monthly picture there rests on temperature and rainfall alone. Beach counts, likewise, are not a swimming season: neither city has a month of 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. Maastricht: 1991-2020 normals, Maastricht Airport Zuid Limburg (10 km from centre). Paris: 1991-2020 normals, Paris-Montsouris (4.6 km from centre).
Maastricht is at its best in June and July, when highs reach 22-24°C and the days are long; August is just as warm but the wettest stretch of its year at 84mm, so pack for showers.
Paris holds warmth longer: high summer runs 24-26°C, and September still reaches 22°C with 51mm of rain, drier than Maastricht's late summer. May is its wettest month at 75mm. Winter is the low point for both.
Getting there
| Flying from | Maastricht | Paris |
|---|---|---|
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 7 h 35 m no fares BRU · 85 km | 7 h 30 m €579-648 1 stop CDG · 22 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 10 m no fares EIN · 70 km | 1 h 5 m €63-103 CDG · 22 km |
| MilanMXP, BGY, LIN | 1 h 30 m no fares EIN · 70 km | 1 h 20 m €61-89 CDG · 22 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 2 h 5 m no fares EIN · 70 km | 1 h 55 m €118-132 ORY · 14 km |
| LisbonLIS | 2 h 45 m no fares EIN · 70 km | 2 h 20 m €138-242 ORY · 14 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 2 h 0 m €148-192 1 stop EIN · 70 km | 1 h 40 m €110-135 CDG · 22 km |
| BudapestBUD | 1 h 55 m €106-231 EIN · 70 km | 2 h 10 m no fares CDG · 22 km |
| MarrakechRAK | 3 h 35 m no fares EIN · 70 km | 3 h 10 m €130-199 ORY · 14 km |
| BeijingPEK, PKX | 10 h 0 m no fares BRU · 85 km | 10 h 20 m no fares CDG · 22 km |
| Sao PauloGRU, VCP, CGH, RTE | 12 h 0 m no fares BRU · 85 km | 11 h 45 m €806-1124 CDG · 22 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 2026-09, 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 | Maastricht | Paris |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Dutch | French |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CF230 V, 50 Hz | CE230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 or 911 | 112 |
| Elevation | 49 m | 27 m |
| Main airport | Maastricht Aachen Airport (MST)9 km from centre5 non-stop destinations | Charles de Gaulle International Airport (CDG)22 km from centre277 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 11 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Maastricht | Paris |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 120,227 | 2,103,778 |
| People per km² | 2,000 | 19,960 |
| Museums within 10 km | 21 | 251 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 5 | 4 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 33 | 169 |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Maastricht or Paris somewhere new.