VacationSelector
The adobe New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe
Santa FeThe adobe New Mexico Museum of Art
The old Hokkaido Government Office and its flower beds, Sapporo
SapporoThe old Hokkaido Government Office and its flower beds

Photos: Santa Fe by dconvertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Sapporo by Feri88, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Santa Fe or Sapporo?

Our verdict in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities, and the climate month by month, so you can choose for your trip.

Choose Santa Fe for

  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Fe’s own page.

Choose Sapporo for

  • nightlife
  • getting around
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Sapporo’s own page.

Scoreboard

Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.

Beaches & swimming. Santa Fe 5, Sapporo 28: Sapporo leads by 23 points.
Food & drink. Santa Fe 62, Sapporo 80: Sapporo leads by 18 points.
Culture & sights. Santa Fe 66, Sapporo 40: Santa Fe leads by 26 points.
Nightlife. Santa Fe 22, Sapporo 62: Sapporo leads by 40 points.
Nature & outdoors. Santa Fe 80, Sapporo 86: Sapporo leads by 6 points.
Day trips. Santa Fe 70, Sapporo 64: Santa Fe leads by 6 points.
Good for families. Santa Fe 45, Sapporo 72: Sapporo leads by 27 points.
Getting around. Santa Fe 40, Sapporo 80: Sapporo leads by 40 points.
Shopping & style. Santa Fe 62, Sapporo 58: Santa Fe leads by 4 points.
Affordability. Santa Fe 30, Sapporo 60: Sapporo leads by 30 points.
Live music & performing arts. Santa Fe 55, Sapporo 44: Santa Fe leads by 11 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Santa Fe 55, Sapporo 80: Sapporo leads by 25 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Santa Fe and Sapporo.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Santa Fe
49match

Wins on culture and sights and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Sapporo
Best match
63match

Wins on nightlife and getting around with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Santa Fe in July

31 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
60 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Sapporo in July

25 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
91 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
19 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
Santa FeSapporo

Where the figures come from

Santa Fe's station stands 199 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Santa Fe has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Santa Fe: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Fe / Cieneguilla (12.4 km from centre). Sapporo: 1991-2020 normals, Sapporo (2.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureSanta FeSapporo
Official language-Japanese
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Yen (JPY)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the region
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-7, UTC-6 in summerUTC+9
Emergency number911Police 110, fire 119
Elevation2,134 m5 m
Main airportSanta Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)12 km from centre5 non-stop destinationsNew Chitose Airport (CTS)42 km from centre42 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureSanta FeSapporo
City population87,5051,959,313
People per km²6451,747
Museums within 10 km1033
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C-1 month

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Santa Fe or Sapporo somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Rainfall where no rain gauge is within 25 km is from the TerraClimate 1991-2020 climatology (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, Scientific Data), read at the city. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.