Paris or Vienna?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on sights concentration and nature & day trips 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 Paris if you want the most within walking distance: far more notable places, restaurants and bars close to the centre than Vienna, and more protected countryside around the city for days out.
Choose Vienna if museums and heritage are the reason you are going, if 22 beaches within reach appeal, and if you want the warmest peak summer, at 27°C.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Paris and Vienna are level on 0.
| Paris | Vienna | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 2 | 22 |
| Coast distance | 149 km | 10,000 km |
| Water distance | — | — |
Places to eat. Paris leads by 13 points.13
| Paris | Vienna | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 90 | 77 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 4,732 | 1,617 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 33 | 37 |
Museums & heritage. Vienna leads by 5 points.5
| Paris | Vienna | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 76 | 81 |
| Museums within 10 km | 185 | 192 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 65 | 110 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 35 | 57 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 4 | 3 |
Nightlife. Paris leads by 14 points.14
| Paris | Vienna | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 88 | 74 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 3,796 | 1,948 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 1,694 | 1,089 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 45 | 56 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 201 | 108 |
Nature & day trips. Paris leads by 16 points.16
| Paris | Vienna | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 48 | 32 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 28 | 4 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 26 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 82 hectares | 93 hectares |
Good for families. Paris leads by 6 points.6
| Paris | Vienna | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 75 | 69 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 89 | 46 |
| Park area within 2 km | 82 hectares | 93 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 3 | 4 |
Sights concentration. Paris leads by 19 points.19
| Paris | Vienna | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 94 | 75 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 865 | 287 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Paris leads by 3 points.3
| Paris | Vienna | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 59 |
| Price level global | 73.7 | 76.9 |
| Daily budget | €160 | €160 |
Year-round weather. Paris leads by 5 points.5
| Paris | Vienna | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 66 | 61 |
| Monthly daytime high | 7.8 °C to 26 °C | 3.3 °C to 26.8 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 38 mm to 75 mm | 38 mm to 80 mm |
| Dry months | 1 | 1 |
Where they differ
Paris has about three times as many notable places within walking distance of the centre, so more of a short trip works on foot, and about three times as many restaurants near it. It also has roughly twice as many places to drink and twice as many nightclubs, and 28% of the land around it is protected against 4% around Vienna.
Vienna leads on museums and heritage, and has 22 beaches nearby against Paris's 2, plus 4 theme parks within reach against 3.
Where they are alike
Both are inland cities: neither has a month with sea at 21°C or more, so swimming is not the reason to book either trip.
They also hold a similar number of museums, with 4 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach of Paris against 3 for Vienna, similar park space near the centre, and the same national price level, around €160 a day. Each has one month of the year at 40mm of rain or less.
Which traveller are you?
A short-break sightseer walking everywhere: Paris. It packs about three times as many notable places within walking distance of the centre and about three times as many restaurants nearby, so days need less planning and less transport.
A museum-led traveller with time to spare: Vienna. Its museum and heritage offering is the stronger of the two, and the city is quieter after dark, with about half the bars and clubs of Paris.
Families and anyone wanting countryside: mostly Paris, with twice the attractions near the centre and 28% of the surrounding land protected against 4%. Vienna answers with 4 theme parks within reach against 3.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figure of €160 is a national estimate, one per country, not a measurement of either city. A heavily visited capital can sit well above its own national average, by more than the gap between these two figures, so neither city can be called the cheaper trip on this basis.
No weather station near Paris records sunshine hours, so that figure is missing rather than low and that side of the weather comparison is unmeasured; the monthly picture there rests on temperature and rainfall alone. And Vienna's 22 nearby beaches come without a warm-water season: neither city has a month of sea at 21°C or more.
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). Vienna: 1991-2020 normals, Wien / Hohe Warte (4.7 km from centre).
Paris suits a wider spread of the year. It is milder in winter, with January highs near 8°C against Vienna's 3°C, and its June to August stretch runs 24-26°C with noticeably less rain than Vienna's summer.
Vienna's window is narrower and centred on July and August at 27°C, warmer than Paris but wetter, at 71-78mm in those two months. May is warm in both, around 20-21°C, and is the wettest month of the year in each.
Getting there
| Flying from | Paris | Vienna |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 5 m €63-103 CDG · 22 km | 2 h 10 m €105-189 1 stop VIE · 18 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 3 h 15 m €152-378 1 stop CDG · 22 km | 2 h 5 m €121-285 VIE · 18 km |
| MilanMXP, BGY, LIN | 1 h 20 m €61-89 CDG · 22 km | 1 h 25 m €49-71 VIE · 18 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 7 h 30 m €579-648 1 stop CDG · 22 km | 8 h 40 m €736-786 1 stop VIE · 18 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 1 h 10 m €122-134 CDG · 22 km | 1 h 25 m €143-152 VIE · 18 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 40 m €110-135 CDG · 22 km | 2 h 15 m €117-169 VIE · 18 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 10 m €188-212 CDG · 22 km | 1 h 50 m €180-245 1 stop VIE · 18 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 6 h 50 m €292-389 1 stop CDG · 22 km | 5 h 40 m €292-307 VIE · 18 km |
| TokyoHND, NRT | 12 h 5 m €705-999 1 stop CDG · 22 km | 11 h 25 m no fares VIE · 18 km |
| CancunCUN | 10 h 20 m no fares CDG · 22 km | 11 h 30 m no fares VIE · 18 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 | Vienna |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | French | German, Austrian Sign Language |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CE230 V, 50 Hz | CF230 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 | 151 m |
| Main airport | Charles de Gaulle International Airport (CDG)22 km from centre277 non-stop destinations | Vienna International Airport (VIE)18 km from centre204 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 16 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Paris | Vienna |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 2,103,778 | 2,028,289 |
| People per km² | 19,960 | 4,890 |
| Museums within 10 km | 251 | 152 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 4 | 3 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 169 | 113 |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Paris or Vienna somewhere new.