VacationSelector
Colourful houses in the old town, Mazatlan
MazatlanColourful houses in the old town
People's Square (Narodni trg), Zadar
ZadarPeople's Square (Narodni trg)

Photos: Mazatlan by Gzzz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Zadar by Böhringer Friedrich, CC BY-SA 2.5, cropped.

Mazatlan or Zadar?

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 Mazatlan for

  • prices
  • food and drink
  • nightlife

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

Choose Zadar for

  • day trips
  • nature and the outdoors
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Zadar’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. Mazatlan 80, Zadar 72: Mazatlan leads by 8 points.
Food & drink. Mazatlan 62, Zadar 45: Mazatlan leads by 17 points.
Culture & sights. Mazatlan 42, Zadar 55: Zadar leads by 13 points.
Nightlife. Mazatlan 55, Zadar 38: Mazatlan leads by 17 points.
Nature & outdoors. Mazatlan 66, Zadar 82: Zadar leads by 16 points.
Day trips. Mazatlan 45, Zadar 70: Zadar leads by 25 points.
Good for families. Mazatlan 60, Zadar 55: Mazatlan leads by 5 points.
Getting around. Mazatlan 42, Zadar 58: Zadar leads by 16 points.
Shopping & style. Mazatlan 30, Zadar 27: Mazatlan leads by 3 points.
Affordability. Mazatlan 70, Zadar 52: Mazatlan leads by 18 points.
Live music & performing arts. Mazatlan 40, Zadar 28: Mazatlan leads by 12 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Mazatlan and Zadar are level on 35.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Mazatlan and Zadar.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Mazatlan
52match

Wins on prices and food and drink with your weighting.

Zadar
51match

Wins on day trips and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Mazatlan in July

34 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
153 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Zadar in July

31 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
29 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
24 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
MazatlanZadar

Where the figures come from

Zadar 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. Mazatlan: 1991-2020 normals, Colonia Juan Carras-Co Mazatlan, Sin. (2 km from centre). Zadar: 1999-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Zadar / Zemunik (9.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMazatlanZadar
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaCroatian
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-7UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation139 m5 m
Main airportGeneral Rafael Buelna International Airport (MZT)16 km from centre23 non-stop destinationsZadar Airport (ZAD)10 km from centre66 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureMazatlanZadar
City population441,97570,779
Museums within 10 km31
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km02
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months4 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Mazatlan or Zadar 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). 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.