VacationSelector

Malaga or Cadiz?

Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Your match

Malaga
✓ Best match
59
match

Wins on places to eat and nightlife with your weighting.

Cadiz
49
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and good for families 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 Cadiz if the beach is the point and you want high summer without extremes: August highs stay near 28°C, with more beaches within reach and more compact family sightseeing.

Choose Malaga if you want variety off the sand: far more restaurants and bars, about twice the museums, more protected countryside for day trips, and warmer, drier spring months.

Scoreboard

Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.

MalagaCadiz
Beaches & swimming. Cadiz leads by 4 points.4
MalagaCadiz
Score6670
Swim season months33
Beaches 10 km2129
Coast distance0 km0 km
Water distance0 km0 km
Places to eat. Malaga leads by 25 points.25
MalagaCadiz
Score6944
Restaurants within 2 km of centre1,002338
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km3418
Museums & heritage. Malaga leads by 17 points.17
MalagaCadiz
Score5336
Museums within 10 km4023
Museums within 2 km of centre3516
Share of museums within 2 km %8870
Unesco sites within 50 km10
Nightlife. Malaga leads by 24 points.24
MalagaCadiz
Score5430
Drinking venues within 4 km715241
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre486175
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %6873
Nightclubs within 4 km456
Nature & day trips. Malaga leads by 17 points.17
MalagaCadiz
Score4326
Protected land share 50 km %74
Landscape blanket share 50 km %00
Land share of disc %6345
Park area within 2 km85 hectares24 hectares
Good for families. Cadiz leads by 1 points.1
MalagaCadiz
Score5354
Tourist attractions within 2 km3380
Park area within 2 km85 hectares24 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km00
Sights concentration. Malaga leads by 6 points.6
MalagaCadiz
Score3731
Notable places within 2 km3323
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Malaga and Cadiz are level on 71.
MalagaCadiz
Score7171
Price level global60.860.8
Daily budget€122€122
Year-round weather. Cadiz leads by 1 points.1
MalagaCadiz
Score8283
Monthly daytime high17.2 °C to 31.5 °C16.2 °C to 28 °C
Monthly rainfall0 mm to 88 mm0 mm to 89 mm
Dry months55
0255075100

Where they differ

Cadiz is the stronger beach base, with 29 stretches of sand nearby against Malaga's 21, and roughly twice as many tourist attractions packed near the centre, which suits short days with children.

Malaga offers far more range: about three times as many restaurants near the centre and a wider spread of kitchens, many more places to drink, and many more nightclubs. It also has about twice as many museums, one UNESCO-listed site within day-trip reach, and 7% of the surrounding land protected against 4% at Cadiz.

Where they are alike

Weather is where they are closest: two coastal cities with mild winters, hot Augusts and long dry summers, each with five months at 40mm of rain or less and roughly 3000 hours of sunshine a year.

Family travel, swimming and walkable sightseeing land in the same place. The sea is 0km from both centres, both warm to 23°C in August, neither has a theme park within reach, and in both the notable places sit close together near the centre.

Which traveller are you?

A family whose days run beach, lunch, a quiet attraction will do better in Cadiz, which has 29 beaches nearby and about twice as many attractions near the centre, with August highs of 28°C.

Someone who builds the evening around eating and drinking belongs in Malaga: about three times as many restaurants near the centre, a wider range of kitchens, more places to drink and many more nightclubs.

A traveller wanting museums between walks takes Malaga too: about twice as many museums, a UNESCO-listed site within day-trip reach, more protected land around the city and more park space near the centre.

What the numbers don't tell you

The value comparison here carries no information: it rests on a national price level, identical for both by construction, so it cannot tell you which city costs less on the ground. The €122 a day is one national estimate rather than a measurement of either city.

Beach counts say nothing about crowding. Cadiz's warmest sea, 23°C in August, arrives exactly when the coast is fullest, and the quieter months from October to December carry 60-89mm of rain each. Malaga's July and August highs of 31-32°C are the same trade-off in reverse.

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.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Malaga
17
18
20
22
25
29
31
32
28
24
20
18
Cadiz
16
17
19
20
23
26
28
28
26
23
20
17
Sea temperature, °C
Malaga
15
15
15
16
18
20
22
23
22
20
17
16
Cadiz
16
15
16
17
18
21
23
23
22
20
18
17
Rainfall, mm
Malaga
62
55
66
41
23
4
0
3
25
60
78
88
Cadiz
62
52
54
43
32
6
0
2
29
76
89
73
Daylight, hours per day
Malaga
10
11
12
13
14
15
14
14
13
11
10
10
Cadiz
10
11
12
13
14
15
14
14
12
11
10
10
Sunshine, hours per day
Malaga
6
6
7
8
10
11
12
11
8
7
6
5
Cadiz
6
7
8
9
11
12
12
11
9
8
6
5

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Malaga: 1991-2020 normals, Malaga / Aeropuerto (8.2 km from centre). Cadiz: 1991-2020 normals, Cadiz Bay / Puntales (5.2 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Cadiz is the better high-summer choice. July and August bring highs of 28°C rather than heat that pushes you indoors, with almost no rain, 0-2mm, and sea at 23°C, while Malaga reaches 31-32°C in the same weeks.

Malaga takes the shoulder seasons. April and May are warmer there, 22-25°C against Cadiz's 20-23°C, and drier in May, 23mm against 32mm. September holds 28°C with 25mm. Late autumn favours neither: November brings 78-89mm and December 73-88mm.

Getting there

Flying fromMalagaCadiz
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
2 h 40 m
€67-129
AGP · 9 km
2 h 40 m
no fares
XRY · 31 km
BarcelonaBCN
1 h 35 m
€73-109
AGP · 9 km
1 h 40 m
no fares
XRY · 31 km
BilbaoBIO
1 h 35 m
no fares
AGP · 9 km
1 h 30 m
€112-119
SVQ · 105 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
2 h 25 m
€92
AGP · 9 km
2 h 35 m
€83-157
TNG · 95 km
MadridMAD
1 h 10 m
no fares
AGP · 9 km
1 h 15 m
no fares
XRY · 31 km
Santiago De CompostelaSCQ
1 h 35 m
no fares
AGP · 9 km
1 h 25 m
no fares
SVQ · 105 km
MilanMXP, BGY, LIN
2 h 25 m
€61-88
AGP · 9 km
2 h 25 m
€89-105
SVQ · 105 km
ValenciaVLC
1 h 15 m
no fares
AGP · 9 km
1 h 15 m
€50-96
SVQ · 105 km
AmsterdamAMS
2 h 55 m
€146-177
AGP · 9 km
3 h 5 m
no fares
TNG · 95 km
MarrakechRAK
1 h 25 m
€58-149
AGP · 9 km
1 h 30 m
no fares
SVQ · 105 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

MeasureMalagaCadiz
Official languageSpanishSpanish
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation18 m11 m
Main airportMálaga-Costa del Sol Airport (AGP)9 km from centre165 non-stop destinationsJerez Airport (XRY)31 km from centre23 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureMalagaCadiz
City population599,063109,950
People per km²1,5179,087
Museums within 10 km3211
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Distinct cuisines in the centre6528
Swim season, months above 21 °C3 months3 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Malaga or Cadiz somewhere new.

Browse every destination we have measured

Sources

© OpenStreetMap contributors, data available under the Open Database Licence. Place counts include data from Overture Maps Foundation (CDLA Permissive 2.0), assembled from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and other providers. Notable-place counts from Wikidata (CC0), weighted by Wikipedia language editions. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Non-stop route lists from the "Airlines and destinations" tables on English Wikipedia airport articles, by Wikipedia contributors, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Currency from the ISO 4217 register maintained by SIX, cross-checked against country data from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Price level from World Bank open data (PPP conversion factor for private consumption and official exchange rate), CC BY 4.0. Time zones from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0); clock offsets computed from the IANA time zone database. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

Scores follow rubric v2; snapshot generated 2026-09-01. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.