Maastricht or Stuttgart?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on good for families with your weighting.
Wins on nature & day trips and nightlife 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 compact centre where museums and attractions sit close together, with theme parks and UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach for a family week.
Choose Stuttgart if you want more restaurants, bars and clubs, protected countryside and parks close at hand, and slightly warmer summers reaching 26°C, with drier winters if you are travelling off-season.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Maastricht and Stuttgart are level on 0.
| Maastricht | Stuttgart | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 6 | 3 |
| Coast distance | 118 km | 476 km |
| Water distance | — | — |
Places to eat. Stuttgart leads by 11 points.11
| Maastricht | Stuttgart | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 48 | 59 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 338 | 575 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 22 | 29 |
Museums & heritage. Stuttgart leads by 3 points.3
| Maastricht | Stuttgart | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 53 | 56 |
| Museums within 10 km | 23 | 65 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 13 | 21 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 57 | 32 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 5 | 3 |
Nightlife. Stuttgart leads by 19 points.19
| Maastricht | Stuttgart | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 30 | 49 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 223 | 524 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 182 | 374 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 82 | 71 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 13 | 53 |
Nature & day trips. Stuttgart leads by 43 points.43
| Maastricht | Stuttgart | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 37 | 80 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 19 | 51 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 11 | 31 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 33 hectares | 78 hectares |
Good for families. Maastricht leads by 1 points.1
| Maastricht | Stuttgart | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 46 | 45 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 15 | 11 |
| Park area within 2 km | 33 hectares | 78 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 5 | 2 |
Sights concentration. Stuttgart leads by 8 points.8
| Maastricht | Stuttgart | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 36 | 44 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 32 | 50 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Stuttgart leads by 2 points.2
| Maastricht | Stuttgart | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 58 | 60 |
| Price level global | 79.2 | 75.9 |
| Daily budget | €181 | €163 |
Year-round weather. Stuttgart leads by 4 points.4
| Maastricht | Stuttgart | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 59 | 63 |
| Monthly daytime high | 5.7 °C to 23.8 °C | 5.6 °C to 25.9 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 41 mm to 84 mm | 33 mm to 79 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 3 |
Where they differ
Maastricht keeps things close: its museums cluster tightly around the centre, there are somewhat more tourist attractions near the middle of town, and it has 5 theme parks within reach against Stuttgart's 2, plus 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip range against 3.
Stuttgart has about twice as many restaurants near the centre and a wider range of kitchens, roughly twice as many places to drink and many more nightclubs. Outdoors, 51% of the surrounding land is protected against 19% around Maastricht, with about twice the park space near the centre.
Where they are alike
Neither city is a place to swim. Maastricht counts 6 beaches nearby against Stuttgart's 3, but neither has a month of sea at 21°C or more, so water is not the reason to go to either.
They also land close together on museums, families and weather: both have collections worth a day or two, attractions and park space for children, a January high of 6°C and summers topping out at 24-26°C.
Which traveller are you?
Walkers and anyone who wants green space around them: Stuttgart. 51% of the land around it is protected against 19% around Maastricht, and it has roughly twice the park space near the centre.
Families with younger children: Maastricht, with 5 theme parks within reach against Stuttgart's 2 and more tourist attractions near the centre, though Stuttgart's larger park space suits unstructured days out.
Anyone building a trip around eating and evenings: Stuttgart, with about twice as many restaurants near the centre, a wider range of kitchens, twice as many places to drink and far more clubs.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €181 and €163, are national estimates of restaurant and hotel price levels for the two countries, not measurements of either city. A larger or heavily visited city can sit further from its own national average than these two figures sit from each other, so treat them as background rather than as a reason to choose.
Rain falls on the warmest months. Maastricht's wettest month is August at 84mm, and Stuttgart's summer is similarly wet, so the best months for temperature are not the driest. Beach counts do not mean swimming: neither 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). Stuttgart: 1991-2020 normals, Stuttgart / Neckartal (2.8 km from centre).
Maastricht suits May to September, with highs of 19-24°C. Its driest month is April at 41mm, when it reaches only 15°C, and August is its wettest at 84mm, so late summer showers are likely. September still holds 20°C.
Stuttgart's window runs June to September, warmer at 24-26°C in high summer and still 21°C in September. Its winter and early spring are drier, 33-43mm from January to April against Maastricht's 41-64mm, which matters for an off-season trip.
Getting there
| Flying from | Maastricht | Stuttgart |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 10 m no fares EIN · 70 km | 1 h 35 m no fares STR · 10 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 7 h 35 m no fares BRU · 85 km | 7 h 55 m €537-713 FRA · 146 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 3 h 10 m no fares EIN · 70 km | 2 h 40 m €139-291 STR · 10 km |
| AntalyaAYT | 3 h 40 m no fares MST · 9 km | 3 h 15 m €194-322 1 stop STR · 10 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 2 h 0 m €148-192 1 stop EIN · 70 km | 1 h 50 m €111-165 STR · 10 km |
| PalmaPMI | 2 h 10 m no fares LGG · 29 km | 2 h 0 m no fares STR · 10 km |
| SingaporeSIN, XSP | 13 h 5 m no fares BRU · 85 km | 12 h 45 m no fares FRA · 146 km |
| BudapestBUD | 1 h 55 m €106-231 EIN · 70 km | 1 h 35 m no fares STR · 10 km |
| Sao PauloGRU, VCP, CGH, RTE | 12 h 0 m no fares BRU · 85 km | 12 h 10 m no fares FRA · 146 km |
| HurghadaHRG | 4 h 55 m no fares BRU · 85 km | 4 h 25 m no fares STR · 10 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 | Stuttgart |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Dutch | German |
| 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 or 911 | 112 |
| Elevation | 49 m | 245 m |
| Main airport | Maastricht Aachen Airport (MST)9 km from centre5 non-stop destinations | Stuttgart Airport (STR)10 km from centre121 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 12 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Maastricht | Stuttgart |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 120,227 | 633,484 |
| People per km² | 2,000 | 3,054 |
| Museums within 10 km | 21 | 42 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 5 | 3 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 33 | 59 |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Maastricht or Stuttgart somewhere new.