Mexico City or New York?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on value for money and year-round weather with your weighting.
Wins on beaches & swimming and places to eat 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 Mexico City if you want weather you can plan around: highs of 22-28°C in any month, a long dry stretch from November to April, and protected country within day-trip reach.
Choose New York if eating and drinking out is the point, if you want more attractions and park space for children, and a sea warm enough to swim in at the end of summer.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. New York leads by 64 points.64
| Mexico City | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 64 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 3 |
| Beaches 10 km | 4 | 17 |
| Coast distance | 247 km | 1 km |
| Water distance | — | 1 km |
Places to eat. New York leads by 29 points.29
| Mexico City | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 66 | 95 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 2,179 | 6,032 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 15 | 38 |
Museums & heritage. Mexico City leads by 19 points.19
| Mexico City | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 79 | 60 |
| Museums within 10 km | 138 | 119 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 65 | 31 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 47 | 26 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 6 | 2 |
Nightlife. New York leads by 11 points.11
| Mexico City | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 78 | 89 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 2,156 | 4,159 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 926 | 2,015 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 43 | 48 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 198 | 192 |
Nature & day trips. Mexico City leads by 24 points.24
| Mexico City | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 63 | 39 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 30 | 4 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 69 |
| Park area within 2 km | 32 hectares | 134 hectares |
Good for families. New York leads by 22 points.22
| Mexico City | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 50 | 72 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 23 | 37 |
| Park area within 2 km | 32 hectares | 134 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 4 | 7 |
Sights concentration. New York leads by 20 points.20
| Mexico City | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 54 | 74 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 88 | 268 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Mexico City leads by 33 points.33
| Mexico City | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 76 | 43 |
| Price level global | 54.2 | 100 |
| Daily budget | — | — |
Year-round weather. Mexico City leads by 32 points.32
| Mexico City | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 90 | 58 |
| Monthly daytime high | 22.2 °C to 27.9 °C | 4.5 °C to 30.1 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 3 mm to 186 mm | 74 mm to 112 mm |
| Dry months | 6 | 0 |
Where they differ
Mexico City's year barely moves: highs of 22-28°C in every month, and six months at 40mm of rain or less. 30% of the land around it is protected, far more than around New York, so day trips lead into open country.
New York has about three times as many restaurants near the centre and a far wider range of kitchens. It also has a coast: 17 beaches within reach, and three months when the sea is at 21°C or more, where Mexico City has no swimming season.
Where they are alike
Nightlife is where the two land closest. They have a similar number of nightclubs, and in each roughly half of the drinking sits near the centre, so a night out works from a central base.
They are close again on museums and on how the centre is arranged. Both hold substantial collections, Mexico City somewhat more of them, and in both the notable places cluster centrally enough for a short stay to run largely on foot.
Which traveller are you?
If a trip is planned around meals and late nights, New York is the stronger pick: far more restaurants near the centre, a much wider range of kitchens, and more places to drink.
Families are better served in New York, with many more attractions near the centre, far more park space, 7 theme parks within reach against Mexico City's 4, and beaches with sea at 21°C or more in late summer.
For museums and days out of town, Mexico City: more museums, packed tighter around the centre, 6 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against New York's 2, and 30% of the surrounding land protected.
What the numbers don't tell you
No cost comparison is possible here. The dataset carries no daily budget figure for either city, so nothing on this page tells you which trip is the more expensive; the value axis is built from a different measure and should not be read as a price tag.
The sunshine figure is missing for New York, so that side of the weather comparison is unmeasured rather than weak. Its beach strength is also seasonal: the sea reaches 21°C or more in only three months, with rain running near 100mm through them. Mexico City's steady highs likewise hide a summer of 176-186mm.
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. Mexico City: 1991-2020 normals, Mexico Central, D. F. (7.9 km from centre). New York: 1991-2020 normals, LaGuardia Airport (12.9 km from centre).
Mexico City peaks from February to April, with highs of 25-28°C and 3-27mm of rain a month. November to January is similarly dry. July and August are the exception, at 176-186mm.
New York suits late May to September, with highs of 22-29°C and a sea reaching 23°C at its warmest. Rainfall barely varies, close to 100mm in every month, so choose on warmth rather than dryness, and midwinter is cold enough to rule out long spells outdoors.
Getting there
| Flying from | Mexico City | New York |
|---|---|---|
| ChicagoORD, MDW, DPA, PWK +1 | 3 h 50 m €259-271 MEX · 7 km | 2 h 5 m €236-237 LGA · 13 km |
| Los AngelesLAX, BUR, SNA, VNY | 3 h 35 m €248-282 1 stop MEX · 7 km | 5 h 20 m €314-354 1 stop JFK · 21 km |
| DallasDFW, DAL, AFW | 2 h 25 m €203-306 1 stop MEX · 7 km | 3 h 20 m €201-385 LGA · 13 km |
| TorontoYYZ, YHM, YTZ | 4 h 30 m €367-420 1 stop MEX · 7 km | 1 h 20 m €206-234 LGA · 13 km |
| HoustonIAH, HOU | 2 h 5 m no fares MEX · 7 km | 3 h 20 m €254-372 1 stop LGA · 13 km |
| CancunCUN | 2 h 10 m €123-162 MEX · 7 km | 3 h 35 m no fares JFK · 21 km |
| San Jose Del CaboSJD | 2 h 5 m no fares MEX · 7 km | 5 h 15 m no fares JFK · 21 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 11 h 30 m no fares MEX · 7 km | 7 h 30 m €445-517 JFK · 21 km |
| TokyoHND, NRT | 14 h 0 m no fares MEX · 7 km | 13 h 30 m €989-1136 JFK · 21 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 17 h 30 m €1,075-1211 2 stops MEX · 7 km | 13 h 40 m no fares EWR · 14 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 | Mexico City | New York |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Spanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya | – |
| Currency | Mexican Peso (MXN) | US Dollar (USD) |
| Sockets | AB127 V, 60 Hz | AB120 V, 60 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC-6 | UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer |
| Emergency number | 911 | 911 |
| Elevation | 2,240 m | 25 m |
| Main airport | Mexico City Benito Juárez International Airport (MEX)7 km from centre95 non-stop destinations | John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)21 km from centre188 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 9 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Mexico City | New York |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 9,209,944 | 8,804,190 |
| People per km² | 6,202 | 7,256 |
| Museums within 10 km | 108 | 157 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 6 | 2 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 50 | 132 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | – | 3 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Mexico City or New York somewhere new.