VacationSelector
Parliament Hill across the Ottawa River, Ottawa
OttawaParliament Hill across the Ottawa River
Stortorget in Gamla stan, Stockholm
StockholmStortorget in Gamla stan

Photos: Ottawa by Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Stockholm by Jorge Franganillo, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Ottawa or Stockholm?

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 Ottawa for

  • prices

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

Choose Stockholm for

  • shopping
  • nightlife
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Stockholm’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. Ottawa 35, Stockholm 40: Stockholm leads by 5 points.
Food & drink. Ottawa 45, Stockholm 64: Stockholm leads by 19 points.
Culture & sights. Ottawa 62, Stockholm 77: Stockholm leads by 15 points.
Nightlife. Ottawa 35, Stockholm 57: Stockholm leads by 22 points.
Nature & outdoors. Ottawa 68, Stockholm 72: Stockholm leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Ottawa 55, Stockholm 68: Stockholm leads by 13 points.
Good for families. Ottawa 68, Stockholm 82: Stockholm leads by 14 points.
Getting around. Ottawa 62, Stockholm 84: Stockholm leads by 22 points.
Shopping & style. Ottawa 40, Stockholm 70: Stockholm leads by 30 points.
Affordability. Ottawa 40, Stockholm 30: Ottawa leads by 10 points.
Live music & performing arts. Ottawa 52, Stockholm 65: Stockholm leads by 13 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Ottawa 55, Stockholm 56: Stockholm leads by 1 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Ottawa and Stockholm.

Your match

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

Ottawa
51match

Wins on prices with your weighting.

Stockholm
Best match
64match

Wins on shopping and nightlife with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Ottawa in July

27 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
82 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Stockholm in July

23 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
65 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
16 °Csea
18 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080100JFMAMJJASOND
OttawaStockholm

Where the figures come from

Stockholm 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.

Stockholm's sunshine is measured 26 km from the centre, at Stockholm Observatoriet.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Ottawa: 1991-2020 normals, Ottawa CDA RCS (5.3 km from centre). Stockholm: 2003-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Stockholm Bromma Airport (7.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureOttawaStockholm
Official languageFrench, EnglishSwedish
CurrencyCanadian Dollar (CAD)Swedish Krona (SEK)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation70 m22 m
Main airportOttawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport (YOW)12 km from centre46 non-stop destinationsStockholm-Arlanda Airport (ARN)36 km from centre174 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureOttawaStockholm
City population1,017,449984,748
People per km²3665,260
Museums within 10 km20266
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km13
Swim season, months above 21 °C-None

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Ottawa or Stockholm 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. 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.