VacationSelector

Rotterdam or York?

Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Your match

Rotterdam
✓ Best match
54
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and good for families with your weighting.

York
41
match

Has no clear advantage with the weighting you have chosen.

What matters to you?

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.

The verdict

Choose Rotterdam if you want the wider choice of restaurants, more to keep children occupied and some access to the coast: 22 beaches within reach, though the sea only reaches 19°C at its warmest.

Choose York if you prefer a smaller, quieter city where the museums sit tightly around the centre and the countryside starts sooner, and you can do without swimming.

Scoreboard

Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.

RotterdamYork
Beaches & swimming. Rotterdam leads by 37 points.37
RotterdamYork
Score370
Swim season months00
Beaches 10 km222
Coast distance24 km50 km
Water distance24 km—
Places to eat. Rotterdam leads by 18 points.18
RotterdamYork
Score7254
Restaurants within 2 km of centre862361
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km4631
Museums & heritage. Rotterdam leads by 14 points.14
RotterdamYork
Score6046
Museums within 10 km4118
Museums within 2 km of centre2016
Share of museums within 2 km %4989
Unesco sites within 50 km52
Nightlife. Rotterdam leads by 6 points.6
RotterdamYork
Score4943
Drinking venues within 4 km542450
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre378353
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %7078
Nightclubs within 4 km4014
Nature & day trips. Rotterdam leads by 9 points.9
RotterdamYork
Score4233
Protected land share 50 km %1017
Landscape blanket share 50 km %016
Land share of disc %7995
Park area within 2 km61 hectares42 hectares
Good for families. Rotterdam leads by 19 points.19
RotterdamYork
Score6243
Tourist attractions within 2 km2713
Park area within 2 km61 hectares42 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km83
Sights concentration. Rotterdam leads by 12 points.12
RotterdamYork
Score5139
Notable places within 2 km7437
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Rotterdam leads by 4 points.4
RotterdamYork
Score5854
Price level global79.284.9
Daily budget€181—
Year-round weather. Rotterdam and York are level on 56.
RotterdamYork
Score5656
Monthly daytime high6.2 °C to 22.1 °C6.7 °C to 20.9 °C
Monthly rainfall42 mm to 85 mm39 mm to 66 mm
Dry months01
0255075100

Where they differ

Rotterdam has about twice as many restaurants near the centre and a somewhat wider range of kitchens. It is the easier city with children: roughly twice as many attractions near the centre, more park space, and 8 theme parks within reach against York's 3. The coast is genuinely there, with 22 beaches nearby against York's 2.

York has no swimming to speak of, but 17% of the land around it is protected against 10% around Rotterdam, so its day trips lean on countryside rather than shoreline.

Where they are alike

Weather is where they match exactly. Both are mild rather than hot, with Rotterdam at 6-22°C across the year and York at 7-21°C: no hard winter, no reliable heat, and no month that rules out a visit.

Nightlife is the other close call. Rotterdam has somewhat more places to drink, but in both cities the bars and clubs sit near the centre, so an evening out is a matter of walking between doors rather than planning transport.

Which traveller are you?

Travelling with children, Rotterdam is the clearer pick: about twice as many attractions near the centre, more park space, and 8 theme parks within reach against York's 3, plus beaches for a change of scene.

If you are going to eat and drink your way through a weekend, Rotterdam again: roughly twice the restaurants near the centre, a wider spread of kitchens, and about three times as many nightclubs.

If you want a compact city covered on foot with countryside close by, York fits better: its museums cluster tightly around the centre, and 17% of the surrounding land is protected.

What the numbers don't tell you

No daily cost figure exists for York in this data, so the two cannot be compared on price at all. Rotterdam's own figure, about €181 a day, describes that city alone and implies nothing about the other; the value ratings rest on a different measure that both cities do have.

The beach count flatters Rotterdam. Plenty of beaches sit within reach, but the sea peaks at 19°C in August, and August is also among its wettest months. York's driest month, in March, is a cold one, so dry does not mean comfortable.

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.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Rotterdam
6
7
10
14
17
20
22
22
19
15
10
7
York
7
8
10
13
16
19
21
20
18
14
10
7
Sea temperature, °C
Rotterdam
6
5
6
9
12
15
18
19
18
15
11
8
York
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
Rotterdam
71
63
58
42
59
71
85
84
78
81
80
84
York
53
44
39
48
43
61
56
65
58
66
62
60
Daylight, hours per day
Rotterdam
8
10
12
14
16
17
16
15
13
11
9
8
York
8
10
12
14
16
17
17
15
13
11
9
8
Sunshine, hours per day
Rotterdam
2
3
5
6
7
7
7
6
5
4
2
2
York
2
3
4
5
6
5
6
5
4
3
2
2

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Rotterdam: 1993-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Rotterdam Airport Zestienhoven (3.9 km from centre). York: 1991-2020 normals, Leeming (47.9 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Rotterdam is at its warmest in July and August, with highs of 22°C and the sea reaching 19°C, though those are also its wettest months, near 85mm each. May is the drier compromise, warmer without the summer rain.

York's summer is drier: July brings 56mm where Rotterdam's peak is far wetter, at a similar 21°C. Its clearest stretch is spring, when March falls to 39mm, drier than any month Rotterdam offers, though the city is still cool then.

Getting there

Flying fromRotterdamYork
DublinDUB
1 h 35 m
€69-96
AMS · 47 km
1 h 0 m
no fares
LBA · 39 km
CopenhagenCPH
1 h 25 m
€171-212
1 stop
AMS · 47 km
1 h 45 m
no fares
LBA · 39 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 10 m
€178-300
AMS · 47 km
1 h 25 m
no fares
LBA · 39 km
MadridMAD
2 h 25 m
€160-183
AMS · 47 km
2 h 20 m
no fares
MAN · 104 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
7 h 35 m
€512-556
1 stop
AMS · 47 km
7 h 0 m
no fares
MAN · 104 km
DubaiDXB, DWC
6 h 45 m
€318-346
1 stop
AMS · 47 km
7 h 20 m
no fares
MAN · 104 km
StockholmARN, BMA, NYO, VST
2 h 0 m
€156-208
AMS · 47 km
2 h 20 m
no fares
MAN · 104 km
MalagaAGP
2 h 50 m
€274-294
1 stop
RTM · 5 km
2 h 55 m
no fares
LBA · 39 km
BridgetownBGI
9 h 5 m
no fares
AMS · 47 km
8 h 35 m
no fares
MAN · 104 km
ShanghaiPVG, SHA
11 h 10 m
no fares
AMS · 47 km
11 h 30 m
no fares
MAN · 104 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

MeasureRotterdamYork
Official languageDutchEnglish
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Pound Sterling (GBP)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzG230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC, UTC+1 in summer
Emergency number112 or 911112 or 999
Elevation10 m25 m
Main airportRotterdam The Hague Airport (RTM)5 km from centre45 non-stop destinationsLeeds Bradford Airport (LBA)39 km from centre73 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days8 days

By the numbers

MeasureRotterdamYork
City population664,311208,400
People per km²2,080766
Museums within 10 km4024
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km52
Distinct cuisines in the centre7754
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone–

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Rotterdam or York somewhere new.

Browse every destination we have measured

Sources

© OpenStreetMap contributors, data available under the Open Database Licence. Place counts include data from Overture Maps Foundation (CDLA Permissive 2.0), assembled from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and other providers. Notable-place counts from Wikidata (CC0), weighted by Wikipedia language editions. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0.

Scores follow rubric v2; snapshot generated 2026-08-31. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.