Paris or Toulouse?
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 year-round weather 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 Paris if the trip is about what you can reach on foot: the dense core of notable places, the museums, and the widest choice of places to eat and drink after dark.
Choose Toulouse if you want warmth and a smaller city, with highs of 10-29°C across the year and a compact centre where the bars, clubs and museums sit close together.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Paris and Toulouse are level on 0.
| Paris | Toulouse | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 2 | 1 |
| Coast distance | 149 km | 145 km |
| Water distance | — | — |
Places to eat. Paris leads by 20 points.20
| Paris | Toulouse | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 90 | 70 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 4,732 | 962 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 33 | 37 |
Museums & heritage. Paris leads by 25 points.25
| Paris | Toulouse | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 76 | 51 |
| Museums within 10 km | 185 | 27 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 65 | 18 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 35 | 67 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 4 | 2 |
Nightlife. Paris leads by 45 points.45
| Paris | Toulouse | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 88 | 43 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 3,796 | 389 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 1,694 | 343 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 45 | 88 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 201 | 36 |
Nature & day trips. Paris leads by 27 points.27
| Paris | Toulouse | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 48 | 21 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 28 | 1 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 26 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 82 hectares | 43 hectares |
Good for families. Paris leads by 9 points.9
| Paris | Toulouse | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 75 | 66 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 89 | 80 |
| Park area within 2 km | 82 hectares | 43 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 3 | 2 |
Sights concentration. Paris leads by 43 points.43
| Paris | Toulouse | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 94 | 51 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 865 | 72 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Paris and Toulouse are level on 62.
| Paris | Toulouse | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 62 |
| Price level global | 73.7 | 73.7 |
| Daily budget | €160 | €160 |
Year-round weather. Toulouse leads by 5 points.5
| Paris | Toulouse | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 66 | 71 |
| Monthly daytime high | 7.8 °C to 26 °C | 9.7 °C to 28.5 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 38 mm to 75 mm | 37 mm to 74 mm |
| Dry months | 1 | 1 |
Where they differ
Paris has many times as many notable places within walking distance of the centre, many times as many museums, and many times as many bars and nightclubs. Around it, 28% of the land is protected against 1% around Toulouse, and there is about twice as much park space near the centre. Day trips reach 4 UNESCO-listed places against 2.
Toulouse runs warmer, 10-29°C across the year against 8-26°C, and what it has is concentrated: most of its bars and clubs, and its museums, sit close to the centre.
Where they are alike
Neither is a swimming destination. Both have only a beach or two nearby, and neither has a month with sea at 21°C or more, so a trip built around water is off the table in both.
They are also close on families and on weather across the year: similar numbers of tourist attractions near the centre, theme parks within reach of each, and only one month apiece at 40mm of rain or less.
Which traveller are you?
A culture-first traveller should take Paris: many times as many museums, a dense core of notable places within walking distance, and 4 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Toulouse's 2.
A family will find more to work with in Paris too, with about twice the park space near the centre, 3 theme parks within reach against 2, and a similar spread of attractions near the middle in each.
A traveller who wants warmth and short distances should choose Toulouse: 28-29°C in July and August, 25°C in September, and bars, clubs and museums clustered close to the centre rather than spread across a large city.
What the numbers don't tell you
The value comparison between these two carries no information. The figure behind it is a national price level, identical for both by construction, and the €160 daily budget beside it is one national estimate rather than a measurement of either city; real costs will differ by neighbourhood and season, not by anything shown here.
The weather picture is incomplete on one side: no station near Paris records sunshine hours, so that series is missing rather than low, and Paris's monthly ratings rest on temperature and rainfall alone. Read the warm-month comparison as a temperature and rain comparison, not a sunshine one.
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). Toulouse: 1991-2020 normals, Toulouse / Blagnac (7 km from centre).
Paris peaks from June to August, with highs of 24-26°C and rain steady at 51-58mm. May is its wettest month at 75mm, so late spring can be damp, and by November highs are back to 11°C.
Toulouse runs warmer and holds it longer: July and August reach 28-29°C, and July is its driest month at 40mm. September still gives 25°C against Paris's 22°C, and October 20°C against 17°C, which makes it the better late-season pick. Its wettest stretch is April to June, at 64-74mm.
Getting there
| Flying from | Paris | Toulouse |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 5 m €63-103 CDG · 22 km | 1 h 40 m no fares TLS · 7 km |
| MadridMAD | 1 h 55 m €107-141 ORY · 14 km | 1 h 20 m €120-143 TLS · 7 km |
| LisbonLIS | 2 h 20 m €138-242 ORY · 14 km | 1 h 55 m €109-157 TLS · 7 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 10 m €188-212 CDG · 22 km | 1 h 50 m no fares TLS · 7 km |
| NiceNCE | 1 h 30 m €86-132 ORY · 14 km | 1 h 15 m no fares TLS · 7 km |
| MontrealYUL, YHU, YMX | 7 h 10 m €444-536 CDG · 22 km | 7 h 25 m no fares TLS · 7 km |
| MilanMXP, BGY, LIN | 1 h 20 m €61-89 CDG · 22 km | 1 h 25 m €85-124 1 stop TLS · 7 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 1 h 10 m €122-134 CDG · 22 km | 1 h 45 m no fares TLS · 7 km |
| MunichMUC | 1 h 30 m €160-210 1 stop CDG · 22 km | 1 h 50 m no fares TLS · 7 km |
| MarrakechRAK | 3 h 10 m €130-199 ORY · 14 km | 2 h 30 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 2026-08 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 | Toulouse |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | French | French |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CE230 V, 50 Hz | CE230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 | 112 |
| Elevation | 27 m | 115 m |
| Main airport | Charles de Gaulle International Airport (CDG)22 km from centre277 non-stop destinations | Toulouse-Blagnac Airport (TLS)7 km from centre80 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 11 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Paris | Toulouse |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 2,103,778 | 514,819 |
| People per km² | 19,960 | 4,352 |
| Museums within 10 km | 251 | 24 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 4 | 2 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 169 | 101 |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Paris or Toulouse somewhere new.