Manila or Bangkok?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Too close to call, 2 points apart
Wins on beaches & swimming and year-round weather with your weighting.
Wins on places to eat 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 Bangkok if eating and drinking out are the point of the trip: far more restaurants near the centre, a wider spread of kitchens, and a much larger choice of bars and clubs.
Choose Manila if you want the sea close by, 2km from the centre against 23km, with 3 beaches nearby and water warm enough to swim in every month of the year.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Manila leads by 36 points.36
| Manila | Bangkok | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 76 | 40 |
| Swim season months | 12 | 12 |
| Beaches 10 km | 3 | 0 |
| Coast distance | 2 km | 23 km |
| Water distance | 2 km | 23 km |
Places to eat. Bangkok leads by 25 points.25
| Manila | Bangkok | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 58 | 83 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 1,015 | 3,957 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 17 | 26 |
Museums & heritage. Manila leads by 4 points.4
| Manila | Bangkok | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 50 | 46 |
| Museums within 10 km | 77 | 103 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 23 | 30 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 30 | 29 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 1 | 0 |
Nightlife. Bangkok leads by 22 points.22
| Manila | Bangkok | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 61 | 83 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 1,082 | 3,383 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 374 | 1,396 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 35 | 41 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 36 | 72 |
Nature & day trips. Bangkok leads by 22 points.22
| Manila | Bangkok | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 29 | 51 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 4 | — |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 78 | 83 |
| Park area within 2 km | 54 hectares | 42 hectares |
Good for families. Manila leads by 3 points.3
| Manila | Bangkok | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 60 | 57 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 37 | 31 |
| Park area within 2 km | 54 hectares | 42 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 3 | 4 |
Sights concentration. Manila leads by 4 points.4
| Manila | Bangkok | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 52 | 48 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 79 | 62 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Bangkok leads by 3 points.3
| Manila | Bangkok | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 90 | 93 |
| Price level global | 33.7 | 29.7 |
| Daily budget | — | — |
Year-round weather. Manila leads by 5 points.5
| Manila | Bangkok | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 61 | 56 |
| Monthly daytime high | 30.5 °C to 34.6 °C | 32.4 °C to 35.8 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 24 mm to 564 mm | 7 mm to 331 mm |
| Dry months | 4 | 3 |
Where they differ
Bangkok has about three times as many restaurants near the centre as Manila, and a much wider range of kitchens. It also has about three times as many places to drink and twice as many nightclubs, with roughly half of them near the centre in both cities.
Manila puts the sea 2km from the centre, where Bangkok's is 23km away, with 3 beaches within easy reach and no month when the water is too cool to swim. Its central parks are also more generous than Bangkok's.
Where they are alike
Families are similarly served in both. Each has theme parks within reach, 4 around Bangkok and 3 around Manila, and both keep a good number of tourist attractions and park space near the centre, with Manila slightly ahead on both counts.
Their museum and heritage offerings sit at much the same modest level, with Bangkok holding somewhat more museums and Manila 1 UNESCO-listed place within day-trip reach. Both centres put a fair number of notable places within walking distance.
Which traveller are you?
Swimmers and beach days: Manila, without question. The sea is 2km from the centre against Bangkok's 23km, there are 3 beaches nearby where Bangkok has none, and the water stays warm all year.
Eating and going out: Bangkok. It has far more restaurants near the centre, a much broader spread of kitchens, and a considerably larger choice of bars and clubs, with about half of them central.
Families with children: close between them. Manila keeps more attractions and park space near the centre and more notable places within walking distance, while Bangkok has 4 theme parks within reach against Manila's 3.
What the numbers don't tell you
No daily budget figure exists for either city here, so the two cannot be compared on cost at all. The value ratings rest on a different measure that both do have, and should not be read as a price comparison or as evidence that one trip will cost less than the other.
No weather station near Manila records sunshine hours, so that figure is missing rather than low, and Manila's monthly ratings rest on temperature, rain and sea temperature alone. Sea access flatters it, too: the beaches are close, but the warmest sea months overlap with rainfall of 487-564mm.
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. Manila: 1991-2020 normals, Science Garden (6 km from centre). Bangkok: 1991-2020 normals, Bangkok (5.7 km from centre).
Bangkok is driest and most comfortable from December to February, with highs of 32-34°C and 7-22mm of rain. The sea holds near 28°C. Those months also suit long evenings out without afternoon downpours.
Manila's dry window runs longer, January to April, at 31-35°C with rain of 40mm or less. Its wet season is harsher: August brings 564mm against Bangkok's 227mm, so late summer is best avoided there. Both cities flatten out in mid-year, so the good window here is a winter one either way.
Getting there
| Flying from | Manila | Bangkok |
|---|---|---|
| TokyoHND, NRT | 4 h 10 m €304-317 MNL · 11 km | 6 h 5 m €318-365 BKK · 26 km |
| SeoulICN, GMP | 3 h 45 m €191-223 MNL · 11 km | 5 h 0 m €175-251 BKK · 26 km |
| Hong KongHKG | 2 h 0 m €128-135 MNL · 11 km | 2 h 40 m €175-181 BKK · 26 km |
| Kuala LumpurKUL, SZB | 3 h 35 m €159-184 1 stop MNL · 11 km | 2 h 10 m €161-171 DMK · 21 km |
| Ho Chi Minh CitySGN | 2 h 35 m €142-175 MNL · 11 km | 1 h 30 m €127-140 BKK · 26 km |
| ShanghaiPVG, SHA | 2 h 50 m €210-218 1 stop MNL · 11 km | 4 h 5 m €176-184 BKK · 26 km |
| SingaporeSIN, XSP | 3 h 30 m €154-174 MNL · 11 km | 2 h 20 m €163-194 BKK · 26 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 8 h 45 m €428-448 MNL · 11 km | 6 h 25 m €409-425 DMK · 21 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 13 h 20 m no fares MNL · 11 km | 11 h 45 m no fares BKK · 26 km |
| Los AngelesLAX, BUR, SNA, VNY | 14 h 30 m no fares MNL · 11 km | 16 h 20 m €646-679 1 stop BKK · 26 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 | Manila | Bangkok |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | English, Filipino, Taglish | Thai |
| Currency | Philippine Peso (PHP) | Baht (THB) |
| Sockets | ABC220 V, 60 Hz | ABCF220 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Left |
| Time zone | UTC+8 | UTC+7 |
| Emergency number | 911 | Police 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199 |
| Elevation | 9 m | 2 m |
| Main airport | Ninoy Aquino International Airport (MNL)11 km from centre88 non-stop destinations | Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK)26 km from centre142 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 18 days | – |
By the numbers
| Measure | Manila | Bangkok |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 1,902,590 | 5,676,648 |
| People per km² | 76,104 | 3,619 |
| Museums within 10 km | 27 | 59 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 1 | 0 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 39 | 91 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 12 months | 12 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Manila or Bangkok somewhere new.