Oslo or Reykjavik?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on nightlife and sights concentration with your weighting.
Wins on museums & heritage 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 Oslo if you want evenings out and a centre where the notable places sit close together, with more restaurants and a wider range of kitchens, and summer highs reaching 23°C.
Choose Reykjavik if you prefer a smaller capital where the sea starts at the centre, museums cluster tightly, and a UNESCO-listed place sits within day-trip reach.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Oslo and Reykjavik are level on 60.
| Oslo | Reykjavik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 60 | 60 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 163 | 33 |
| Coast distance | 1 km | 0 km |
| Water distance | 1 km | 0 km |
Places to eat. Oslo leads by 18 points.18
| Oslo | Reykjavik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 67 | 49 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 853 | 261 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 34 | 29 |
Museums & heritage. Reykjavik leads by 2 points.2
| Oslo | Reykjavik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 48 | 50 |
| Museums within 10 km | 70 | 34 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 37 | 23 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 53 | 68 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 0 | 1 |
Nightlife. Oslo leads by 26 points.26
| Oslo | Reykjavik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 53 | 27 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 695 | 192 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 562 | 166 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 81 | 86 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 41 | 10 |
Nature & day trips. Oslo leads by 2 points.2
| Oslo | Reykjavik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 61 | 59 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 22 | 16 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 1 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 94 | 56 |
| Park area within 2 km | 88 hectares | 28 hectares |
Good for families. Oslo leads by 6 points.6
| Oslo | Reykjavik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 48 | 42 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 13 | 21 |
| Park area within 2 km | 88 hectares | 28 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 2 | 1 |
Sights concentration. Oslo leads by 21 points.21
| Oslo | Reykjavik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 69 | 48 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 207 | 61 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Oslo leads by 13 points.13
| Oslo | Reykjavik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 54 | 41 |
| Price level global | 85.1 | 102.8 |
| Daily budget | €203 | €243 |
Year-round weather. Oslo leads by 11 points.11
| Oslo | Reykjavik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 48 | 37 |
| Monthly daytime high | 0.1 °C to 22.7 °C | 3.2 °C to 14.9 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 40 mm to 104 mm | 41 mm to 97 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 0 |
Where they differ
Oslo has roughly three times as many places to drink as Reykjavik and many times as many nightclubs. It also has about three times as many notable places within walking distance of the centre, and about three times as many restaurants there, across a somewhat wider range of kitchens.
Reykjavik keeps its museums tightly around the centre and has one UNESCO-listed place within day-trip reach. It also has about twice as many tourist attractions near the centre, and the sea begins at 0km from it.
Where they are alike
Beaches and swimming come out level. Both sit right on the water, the sea 0km from Reykjavik's centre and 1km from Oslo's, and in neither does the sea reach 21°C in any month, so bathing is a short, cold affair at both.
Both also work as bases for days out, with protected land around each, 22% near Oslo and 16% near Reykjavik. Museums are close: Oslo holds more of them, Reykjavik gathers its own tightly around the centre.
Which traveller are you?
A city-break traveller who wants evenings out should take Oslo: many more bars and nightclubs than Reykjavik, about three times the restaurants near the centre, and a wider spread of kitchens.
Families are a closer call. Reykjavik puts about twice as many tourist attractions near its centre, while Oslo has more park space and two theme parks within reach rather than one.
Walkers and museum-goers split. Oslo packs about three times as many notable places into walking distance; Reykjavik's smaller museum set sits tightly around the centre, with one UNESCO-listed place within day-trip reach.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €203 and €243, are national estimates for Norway and Iceland, covering restaurant and hotel price levels country-wide, not measurements of either city. A capital can sit further from its own country average than the two figures sit from each other, so they cannot tell you which trip costs more.
Both come out level on beaches and swimming, but that reflects access to water rather than comfort: the sea peaks at 18°C in Oslo and 11°C in Reykjavik. Oslo's warmer year is a summer effect; its winter days are colder than Reykjavik's.
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. Oslo: 1991-2020 normals, Oslo-Blindern (4.3 km from centre). Reykjavik: 1991-2020 normals, Reykjavik (2.3 km from centre).
Oslo is the summer pick: highs of 17-23°C from May to August, with the sea at 18°C at the peak. Rain builds through the season, from 60mm at its start to 104mm at its end, so early summer is the safer bet.
Reykjavik stays cool, topping out at 15°C, but midsummer is its driest stretch at 41-50mm, against 84-97mm in winter. Outside that spell it is wet, so June and July are the times to aim for.
Getting there
| Flying from | Oslo | Reykjavik |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 2 h 5 m €46-96 OSL · 37 km | 2 h 55 m €245-283 1 stop KEF · 37 km |
| CopenhagenCPH | 1 h 15 m €92-109 OSL · 37 km | 3 h 10 m €216-282 1 stop KEF · 37 km |
| StockholmARN, BMA, NYO, VST | 1 h 5 m €83-98 OSL · 37 km | 3 h 10 m €174-231 1 stop KEF · 37 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 50 m €162-207 OSL · 37 km | 3 h 5 m €293-407 2 stops KEF · 37 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 2 h 15 m €145-204 1 stop OSL · 37 km | 3 h 20 m €247-346 1 stop KEF · 37 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 7 h 40 m no fares OSL · 37 km | 5 h 35 m €389-592 KEF · 37 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 2 h 0 m €163-249 1 stop OSL · 37 km | 3 h 30 m €313-393 2 stops KEF · 37 km |
| HelsinkiHEL | 1 h 35 m €128-170 1 stop OSL · 37 km | 3 h 35 m €268-383 2 stops KEF · 37 km |
| MunichMUC | 2 h 15 m €187-227 1 stop OSL · 37 km | 3 h 50 m €275-453 1 stop KEF · 37 km |
| BeijingPEK, PKX | 8 h 55 m no fares OSL · 37 km | 10 h 0 m no fares KEF · 37 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 2026-08 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 | Oslo | Reykjavik |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Norwegian, Nynorsk, Bokmål, Sámi | Icelandic |
| Currency | Norwegian Krone (NOK) | Iceland Krona (ISK) |
| Sockets | CF230 V, 50 Hz | CF230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer | UTC |
| Emergency number | Police 112, ambulance 113, fire 110 | 112 |
| Elevation | 23 m | 8 m |
| Main airport | Oslo-Gardermoen International Airport (OSL)37 km from centre58 non-stop destinations | Keflavik International Airport (KEF)37 km from centre88 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 12 days | 16 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Oslo | Reykjavik |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 717,710 | 138,772 |
| People per km² | – | 569 |
| Museums within 10 km | 60 | 23 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 0 | 1 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 75 | 42 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | None | None |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Oslo or Reykjavik somewhere new.