Prague or Zagreb?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on good for families and museums & heritage with your weighting.
Wins on value for money and 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 Prague if you want museums, restaurants and a night out packed into the walkable centre, and if you are travelling with children: 3 theme parks within reach, plenty of park space and a UNESCO-listed place on a day trip.
Choose Zagreb if warmth matters more than the depth of what there is to see, with summer highs reaching 29°C and more sunshine over the year, and if a smaller, thinner set of sights suits you.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Prague and Zagreb are level on 0.
| Prague | Zagreb | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 7 | 8 |
| Coast distance | 10,000 km | 117 km |
| Water distance | — | — |
Places to eat. Prague leads by 23 points.23
| Prague | Zagreb | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 75 | 52 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 1,866 | 374 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 29 | 27 |
Museums & heritage. Prague leads by 27 points.27
| Prague | Zagreb | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 72 | 45 |
| Museums within 10 km | 138 | 41 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 100 | 40 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 72 | 98 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 1 | 0 |
Nightlife. Prague leads by 16 points.16
| Prague | Zagreb | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 77 | 61 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 2,248 | 1,009 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 1,457 | 571 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 65 | 57 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 123 | 63 |
Nature & day trips. Prague leads by 11 points.11
| Prague | Zagreb | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 45 | 34 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 12 | 9 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 8 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 183 hectares | 52 hectares |
Good for families. Prague leads by 47 points.47
| Prague | Zagreb | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 75 | 28 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 54 | 7 |
| Park area within 2 km | 183 hectares | 52 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 3 | 0 |
Sights concentration. Prague leads by 16 points.16
| Prague | Zagreb | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 76 | 60 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 310 | 122 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Zagreb leads by 5 points.5
| Prague | Zagreb | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 75 | 80 |
| Price level global | 55.2 | 48.5 |
| Daily budget | €107 | €138 |
Year-round weather. Zagreb leads by 1 points.1
| Prague | Zagreb | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 61 | 62 |
| Monthly daytime high | 2.2 °C to 25.3 °C | 5.4 °C to 28.5 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 22 mm to 80 mm | 47 mm to 104 mm |
| Dry months | 7 | 0 |
Where they differ
Prague suits families far better: many more tourist attractions and much more park space near the centre, and 3 theme parks within reach where Zagreb has none. It also holds about three times as many museums, plus 1 UNESCO-listed place within day-trip reach, and many more restaurants close to the centre, though the two cover a similar range of kitchens.
Zagreb runs warmer through the year, with daytime highs of 5-29°C against Prague's 2-25°C, and gets more sunshine, roughly 1999 hours against 1740.
Where they are alike
Neither is a place to swim. Zagreb counts 8 beaches nearby and Prague 7, but neither has a month with sea at 21°C or more, so the counts do not add up to a swimming season in either.
Their years follow the same shape: both are warmest in July, coldest in January, and both fall away sharply in winter. Cost is judged the same way for both, on a national price estimate rather than anything measured in the city itself.
Which traveller are you?
Museum-led travellers should take Prague: about three times as many museums as Zagreb, 1 UNESCO-listed place within day-trip reach, and more notable buildings within walking distance of the centre to fill the gaps between them.
Families are better served in Prague too, with many more tourist attractions and far more park space near the centre, and 3 theme parks within reach where Zagreb has none at all.
Anyone chasing warmth and long evenings out should weigh Zagreb, with summer highs up to 29°C and more annual sunshine, though it has fewer bars and clubs and only about half of them sit near the centre.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €107 for Prague's country and €138 for Zagreb's, are national price levels for restaurants and hotels, not measurements of either city. A capital can sit further from its own national average than these two estimates sit from each other, so they do not tell you which city will cost you more.
The beach counts near each city look similar and encouraging, but neither has a month of sea at 21°C or more. And Zagreb's warmth arrives with water: its hottest months are among its wettest, and autumn is wetter still, up to 104mm.
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. Prague: 1991-2020 normals, Praha-Libus (8.1 km from centre). Zagreb: 1991-2020 normals, Zagreb / Gric (0.6 km from centre).
June to August is Prague's warmest window at 23-25°C, and also its wettest at 65-80mm. September is the drier compromise, 44mm with highs still near 20°C, and Prague keeps several genuinely dry months either side of winter.
Zagreb runs warmer over the same stretch, 27-29°C, but the rain rarely lets up: 85-90mm at the peak, then 104mm in September, roughly double what Prague gets that month. In winter Zagreb stays a little milder, Prague a good deal drier.
Getting there
| Flying from | Prague | Zagreb |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 55 m €63-104 1 stop PRG · 12 km | 2 h 15 m no fares ZAG · 11 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 1 h 10 m €126-144 PRG · 12 km | 1 h 30 m no fares ZAG · 11 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 40 m €86-113 PRG · 12 km | 1 h 55 m no fares ZAG · 11 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 2 h 25 m €118-136 PRG · 12 km | 2 h 0 m €153-254 ZAG · 11 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 30 m €163-247 PRG · 12 km | 2 h 0 m no fares ZAG · 11 km |
| BrusselsBRU, CRL | 1 h 30 m €61-116 PRG · 12 km | 1 h 55 m no fares ZAG · 11 km |
| DubrovnikDBV | 1 h 45 m no fares PRG · 12 km | 1 h 10 m no fares ZAG · 11 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 5 h 55 m €276-321 1 stop PRG · 12 km | 5 h 35 m no fares ZAG · 11 km |
| TorontoYYZ, YHM, YTZ | 8 h 30 m no fares PRG · 12 km | 9 h 0 m no fares ZAG · 11 km |
| SeoulICN, GMP | 10 h 20 m no fares PRG · 12 km | 10 h 35 m no fares ZAG · 11 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 2026-09 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 | Prague | Zagreb |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Czech | Croatian |
| Currency | Czech Koruna (CZK) | 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 | 235 m | 127 m |
| Main airport | Václav Havel Airport Prague (PRG)12 km from centre175 non-stop destinations | Zagreb Franjo Tuđman International Airport (ZAG)11 km from centre60 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 13 days | 14 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Prague | Zagreb |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 1,397,880 | 767,131 |
| People per km² | 2,817 | – |
| Museums within 10 km | 88 | 27 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 1 | 0 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 89 | 42 |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Prague or Zagreb somewhere new.