VacationSelector
The harbour seen from above, Marmaris
MarmarisThe harbour seen from above
The Bell Tower of Xi'an under a blue sky, Xi'an
Xi'anThe Bell Tower of Xi'an under a blue sky

Photos: Marmaris by Mstyslav Chernov, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Xi'an by xiquinhosilva, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Marmaris or Xi'an?

Our verdict in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities, and the climate month by month, so you can choose for your trip.

Choose Marmaris for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Marmaris’s own page.

Choose Xi'an for

  • culture and sights
  • food and drink
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Xi'an’s own page.

Scoreboard

Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.

Beaches & swimming. Marmaris 80, Xi'an 4: Marmaris leads by 76 points.
Food & drink. Marmaris 40, Xi'an 70: Xi'an leads by 30 points.
Culture & sights. Marmaris 18, Xi'an 81: Xi'an leads by 63 points.
Nightlife. Marmaris 60, Xi'an 42: Marmaris leads by 18 points.
Nature & outdoors. Marmaris 72, Xi'an 62: Marmaris leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Marmaris 65, Xi'an 80: Xi'an leads by 15 points.
Good for families. Marmaris 62, Xi'an 48: Marmaris leads by 14 points.
Getting around. Marmaris 55, Xi'an 66: Xi'an leads by 11 points.
Shopping & style. Marmaris 38, Xi'an 50: Xi'an leads by 12 points.
Affordability. Marmaris 62, Xi'an 80: Xi'an leads by 18 points.
Live music & performing arts. Marmaris 12, Xi'an 40: Xi'an leads by 28 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Marmaris 50, Xi'an 40: Marmaris leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Marmaris and Xi'an.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Marmaris
51match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Xi'an
Best match
55match

Wins on culture and sights and food and drink with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Marmaris in July

32 °Cdaytime high
21 °Cnight-time low
8 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
25 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Xi'an in July

33 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
96 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
MarmarisXi'an

Where the figures come from

Marmaris's temperatures are measured 49 km from the centre, at Dalaman.

Marmaris has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Marmaris: 2000-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Dalaman (48.8 km from centre). Xi'an: 1991-2020 normals, Xi'An (4.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMarmarisXi'an
Official languageTurkishPutonghua
CurrencyTurkish Lira (TRY)Yuan Renminbi (CNY)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzACI220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+3UTC+8
Emergency number112Police 110, ambulance 120, fire 119
Elevation7 m405 m
Main airportDalaman International Airport (DLM)49 km from centre61 non-stop destinationsXi'an Xianyang International Airport (XIY)26 km from centre178 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days6 days

By the numbers

MeasureMarmarisXi'an
City population97,81812,952,907
People per km²1111,283
Museums within 10 km19
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km12
Swim season, months above 21 °C6 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Marmaris or Xi'an somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Rainfall where no rain gauge is within 25 km is from the TerraClimate 1991-2020 climatology (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, Scientific Data), read at the city. 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). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.