VacationSelector

Montpellier or Toulouse?

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, 1 point apart

Montpellier
47
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and nature & day trips with your weighting.

Toulouse
48
match

Wins on museums & heritage 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 Montpellier if you want the sea in the picture, with 8 beaches nearby and swimmable water in late summer, plus protected countryside and parks for days out of the city.

Choose Toulouse if you would rather walk between museums and sights, with about twice as many of each near the centre, more places to eat and drink, and more attractions for children.

Scoreboard

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

MontpellierToulouse
Beaches & swimming. Montpellier leads by 32 points.32
MontpellierToulouse
Score320
Swim season months20
Beaches 10 km81
Coast distance9 km145 km
Water distance9 km—
Places to eat. Toulouse leads by 5 points.5
MontpellierToulouse
Score6570
Restaurants within 2 km of centre737962
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km3437
Museums & heritage. Toulouse leads by 25 points.25
MontpellierToulouse
Score2651
Museums within 10 km1427
Museums within 2 km of centre318
Share of museums within 2 km %2167
Unesco sites within 50 km22
Nightlife. Toulouse leads by 5 points.5
MontpellierToulouse
Score3843
Drinking venues within 4 km318389
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre265343
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %8388
Nightclubs within 4 km2536
Nature & day trips. Montpellier leads by 22 points.22
MontpellierToulouse
Score4321
Protected land share 50 km %151
Landscape blanket share 50 km %100
Land share of disc %70100
Park area within 2 km55 hectares43 hectares
Good for families. Toulouse leads by 22 points.22
MontpellierToulouse
Score4466
Tourist attractions within 2 km880
Park area within 2 km55 hectares43 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km72
Sights concentration. Toulouse leads by 13 points.13
MontpellierToulouse
Score3851
Notable places within 2 km3572
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Montpellier and Toulouse are level on 62.
MontpellierToulouse
Score6262
Price level global73.773.7
Daily budget€160€160
Year-round weather. Montpellier leads by 3 points.3
MontpellierToulouse
Score7471
Monthly daytime high12 °C to 29.6 °C9.7 °C to 28.5 °C
Monthly rainfall17 mm to 93 mm37 mm to 74 mm
Dry months51
0255075100

Where they differ

Montpellier reaches the coast: 8 beaches nearby against Toulouse's 1, and sea that reaches 22°C at its warmest. It is also the better base for getting out of town, with 15% of the surrounding land protected against 1%, more park space near the centre, and 7 theme parks within reach rather than 2.

Toulouse is the stronger city to walk: about twice as many museums, grouped tightly around the centre, twice as many notable places within walking distance, and many more visitor attractions.

Where they are alike

Weather is where they sit closest. Both are coolest in January, at 12°C and 10°C, and both reach summer highs near 30°C, so the shape of the year is much the same; rainfall, not warmth, is what separates them.

Nights out and meals out are close too. Both keep most of their bars and clubs near the centre, and both cover a similar range of kitchens, with Toulouse a little ahead on the number of each.

Which traveller are you?

If swimming is the point of the trip, Montpellier is the only real answer: 8 beaches within reach and a sea that warms to 22°C, against a single beach and no warm-sea months in Toulouse.

For museums and walking, Toulouse: about twice the museums, more tightly grouped, and twice as many notable places within walking distance of the centre. Both have 2 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach.

Families split. Toulouse has far more visitor attractions near the centre; Montpellier answers with more park space and 7 theme parks within reach against 2, plus the beaches.

What the numbers don't tell you

The value comparison between these two carries no information: the figure is a national price level, identical for both by construction, so neither is the cheaper trip on this evidence. The €160 daily budget beside it is one national estimate, not a measurement of either city.

Montpellier's coastal advantage is narrow in time. The sea only reaches 22°C at the height of summer, and the two months that follow are its wettest, at 88-93mm, well above anything Toulouse sees. A beach-led trip outside high summer is a different trip, and high summer is when the coast is busiest.

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
Montpellier
12
13
16
19
23
27
30
29
25
21
16
13
Toulouse
10
11
15
18
21
26
28
29
25
20
14
10
Sea temperature, °C
Montpellier
12
12
12
14
16
19
21
22
20
18
16
14
Toulouse
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
Montpellier
56
35
39
56
46
33
17
36
88
93
78
59
Toulouse
53
37
45
65
74
64
40
45
46
54
55
49
Daylight, hours per day
Montpellier
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Toulouse
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Montpellier
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
10
8
6
5
5
Toulouse
3
4
6
6
7
8
8
8
7
5
3
3

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Montpellier: 1991-2020 normals, Montpellier (7.8 km from centre). Toulouse: 1991-2020 normals, Toulouse / Blagnac (7 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Montpellier peaks in high summer, when highs reach 30°C, rainfall falls to 17mm in July and the sea is at its warmest. Autumn is the catch, with 88-93mm arriving in September and October.

Toulouse is the better late-season pick: September still holds 25°C on 46mm, against 74mm in a wetter May. Its summers run slightly cooler than Montpellier's, and its rain is spread more evenly through the year, so there is no single month to avoid.

Getting there

Flying fromMontpellierToulouse
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 25 m
no fares
MPL · 8 km
1 h 25 m
€77-94
TLS · 7 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 45 m
no fares
MPL · 8 km
1 h 40 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
MadridMAD
1 h 35 m
no fares
MRS · 109 km
1 h 20 m
€120-143
TLS · 7 km
MunichMUC
1 h 35 m
no fares
MRS · 109 km
1 h 50 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
LisbonLIS
2 h 10 m
€136-184
1 stop
MRS · 109 km
1 h 55 m
€109-157
TLS · 7 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
1 h 35 m
no fares
MRS · 109 km
1 h 45 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
TunisTUN
1 h 40 m
no fares
MRS · 109 km
1 h 55 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
AjaccioAJA
1 h 5 m
no fares
MRS · 109 km
1 h 25 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
BastiaBIA
1 h 5 m
no fares
MRS · 109 km
1 h 25 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
MontrealYUL, YHU, YMX
7 h 45 m
no fares
MRS · 109 km
7 h 25 m
no fares
TLS · 7 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

MeasureMontpellierToulouse
Official languageFrenchFrench
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCE230 V, 50 HzCE230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation7 m115 m
Main airportMontpellier-Méditerranée Airport (MPL)8 km from centre36 non-stop destinationsToulouse-Blagnac Airport (TLS)7 km from centre80 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureMontpellierToulouse
City population310,240514,819
People per km²5,4524,352
Museums within 10 km1424
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km22
Distinct cuisines in the centre65101
Swim season, months above 21 °C2 months–

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Montpellier or Toulouse 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 2026-08-31. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.