Paris or London?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on nature & day trips and value for money with your weighting.
Wins on nightlife 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 London if the evening matters most: it has more places to drink, about twice as many nightclubs as Paris, and a wider range of kitchens to work through.
Choose Paris if you want the sightseeing dense and walkable, with more museums and more notable places close to the centre, warmer summer afternoons at 26°C, and more protected countryside within day-trip reach.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Paris and London are level on 0.
| Paris | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 2 | 47 |
| Coast distance | 149 km | 43 km |
| Water distance | — | — |
Places to eat. Paris leads by 2 points.2
| Paris | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 90 | 88 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 4,732 | 3,317 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 33 | 40 |
Museums & heritage. Paris leads by 4 points.4
| Paris | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 76 | 72 |
| Museums within 10 km | 185 | 148 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 65 | 49 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 35 | 33 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 4 | 4 |
Nightlife. London leads by 7 points.7
| Paris | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 88 | 95 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 3,796 | 5,327 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 1,694 | 2,443 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 45 | 46 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 201 | 312 |
Nature & day trips. Paris leads by 8 points.8
| Paris | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 48 | 40 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 28 | 16 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 26 | 14 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 97 |
| Park area within 2 km | 82 hectares | 84 hectares |
Good for families. Paris and London are level on 75.
| Paris | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 75 | 75 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 89 | 85 |
| Park area within 2 km | 82 hectares | 84 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 3 | 3 |
Sights concentration. Paris leads by 5 points.5
| Paris | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 94 | 89 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 865 | 649 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Paris leads by 8 points.8
| Paris | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 54 |
| Price level global | 73.7 | 84.9 |
| Daily budget | €160 | — |
Year-round weather. Paris leads by 3 points.3
| Paris | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 66 | 63 |
| Monthly daytime high | 7.8 °C to 26 °C | 8.2 °C to 23.8 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 38 mm to 75 mm | 38 mm to 67 mm |
| Dry months | 1 | 1 |
Where they differ
London is the better city for a night out: more places to drink than Paris and about twice as many nightclubs, with about half of them close to the centre in both. Its kitchens span a wider range of cuisines.
Paris packs more into a walk: more notable places within walking distance of the centre, more museums and they sit tighter around it, and more restaurants near the centre. The countryside around it is more protected too, 28% of the land against 16% around London.
Where they are alike
Families have little to choose between them. Both have 3 theme parks within reach, a similar number of tourist attractions near the centre and about the same amount of park space close in.
Neither is a swimming trip: London has 47 beaches within reach and Paris very few, but no month brings sea at 21°C or more. Both eat well, and both stay mild, with 1 month at 40mm of rain or less each.
Which traveller are you?
Anyone planning nights out should pick London. It has more places to drink than Paris and about twice as many nightclubs, roughly half of them near the centre, alongside restaurants covering a wider range of kitchens.
Museum-first and walking-first travellers are better served in Paris: more museums, packed tighter around the centre, and more notable places within walking distance. Both cities have 4 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach.
Families can go either way. Both have 3 theme parks within reach and similar park space and attractions near the centre, so decide on weather: Paris runs warmer in summer, up to 26°C.
What the numbers don't tell you
No cost comparison is possible here. The dataset carries no daily spending figure for London at all, so nothing here tells you which city is the cheaper trip. The value ranking rests on a different measure entirely.
The weather comparison is also incomplete: no sunshine figure exists for Paris, so that side rests on temperature and rainfall alone. London's 47 nearby beaches flatter the picture too: neither city has a month with sea at 21°C or more, so they are for walking, not swimming. And the 28% protected land around Paris describes the countryside beyond it, not the city.
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. Paris: 1991-2020 normals, Paris-Montsouris (4.6 km from centre). London: 1991-2020 normals, London Heathrow Airport (22.5 km from centre).
London is at its best from June to August, with highs of 22-24°C and rain near 46-47mm a month. September still reaches 20°C, but October and November turn wettest at 64-67mm.
Paris peaks later and warmer: June to August run 24-26°C, and September holds 22°C with 51mm. May is warm at 20°C but the wettest month of the year at 75mm, so an early-summer trip is safer in London, where May sits at 46mm.
Getting there
| Flying from | Paris | London |
|---|---|---|
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 7 h 30 m €579-648 1 stop CDG · 22 km | 7 h 10 m €518-651 1 stop LHR · 23 km |
| MilanMXP, BGY, LIN | 1 h 20 m €61-89 CDG · 22 km | 1 h 45 m €83-138 LGW · 40 km |
| MadridMAD | 1 h 55 m €107-141 ORY · 14 km | 2 h 10 m €124-216 LHR · 23 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 40 m €110-135 CDG · 22 km | 2 h 0 m €61-144 LGW · 40 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 10 m €188-212 CDG · 22 km | 1 h 5 m €146-170 LHR · 23 km |
| AthensATH | 3 h 10 m €177-208 CDG · 22 km | 3 h 30 m €258-349 1 stop LHR · 23 km |
| MarrakechRAK | 3 h 10 m €130-199 ORY · 14 km | 3 h 20 m €128-183 1 stop LGW · 40 km |
| NiceNCE | 1 h 30 m €86-132 ORY · 14 km | 1 h 55 m no fares LHR · 23 km |
| TokyoHND, NRT | 12 h 5 m €705-999 1 stop CDG · 22 km | 11 h 55 m no fares LHR · 23 km |
| CancunCUN | 10 h 20 m no fares CDG · 22 km | 10 h 5 m no fares LGW · 40 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 | Paris | London |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | French | English |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Pound Sterling (GBP) |
| Sockets | CE230 V, 50 Hz | G230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Left |
| Time zone | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer | UTC, UTC+1 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 | 112 or 999 |
| Elevation | 27 m | 4 m |
| Main airport | Charles de Gaulle International Airport (CDG)22 km from centre277 non-stop destinations | London Heathrow Airport (LHR)23 km from centre220 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 8 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Paris | London |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 2,103,778 | 8,799,728 |
| People per km² | 19,960 | 5,598 |
| Museums within 10 km | 251 | 215 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 4 | 4 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 169 | 116 |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Paris or London somewhere new.