Shanghai or Sydney?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on value for money and good for families with your weighting.
Wins on beaches & swimming and nature & day trips with your weighting.
What matters to you?
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Sydney leads by 43 points.43
| Shanghai | Sydney | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 17 | 60 |
| Swim season months | 5 | 6 |
| Beaches 10 km | 0 | 160 |
| Coast distance | 18 km | 7 km |
| Water distance | 18 km | 7 km |
Museums & heritage. Sydney leads by 6 points.6
| Shanghai | Sydney | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 45 | 51 |
| Museums within 10 km | 108 | 44 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 28 | 20 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 26 | 45 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 0 | 2 |
Nature & day trips. Sydney leads by 16 points.16
| Shanghai | Sydney | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 42 | 58 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 9 | 10 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 82 | 52 |
| Park area within 2 km | 83 hectares | 115 hectares |
Good for families. Shanghai leads by 17 points.17
| Shanghai | Sydney | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 81 | 64 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 86 | 37 |
| Park area within 2 km | 83 hectares | 115 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 10 | 2 |
Sights concentration. Sydney leads by 9 points.9
| Shanghai | Sydney | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 51 | 60 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 73 | 123 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Shanghai leads by 29 points.29
| Shanghai | Sydney | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 79 | 50 |
| Price level global | 49 | 90.2 |
| Daily budget | — | — |
Year-round weather. Sydney leads by 16 points.16
| Shanghai | Sydney | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 65 | 81 |
| Monthly daytime high | 8.5 °C to 33.2 °C | 17.7 °C to 27.7 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 43 mm to 216 mm | 55 mm to 121 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 0 |
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. Shanghai: 1991-2020 normals, Shanghai / Hongqiao (8.1 km from centre). Sydney: 1991-2020 normals, Sydney Airport (3.7 km from centre).
Getting there
| Flying from | Shanghai | Sydney |
|---|---|---|
| TokyoHND, NRT | 2 h 45 m €326-382 PVG · 33 km | 9 h 50 m €671 SYD · 9 km |
| ChengduTFU, CTU | 2 h 35 m €216-247 PVG · 33 km | 10 h 50 m no fares SYD · 9 km |
| SeoulICN, GMP | 1 h 40 m €173-183 PVG · 33 km | 10 h 30 m €548-574 1 stop SYD · 9 km |
| SingaporeSIN, XSP | 5 h 10 m €274-364 1 stop PVG · 33 km | 8 h 5 m €498-549 1 stop SYD · 9 km |
| Hong KongHKG | 2 h 10 m €153-159 PVG · 33 km | 9 h 20 m no fares SYD · 9 km |
| ChongqingCKG, CQW | 2 h 25 m €175-196 PVG · 33 km | 10 h 40 m no fares SYD · 9 km |
| BeijingPEK, PKX | 2 h 0 m €150-154 PVG · 33 km | 11 h 15 m €518-556 1 stop SYD · 9 km |
| Los AngelesLAX, BUR, SNA, VNY | 12 h 55 m €606-798 1 stop PVG · 33 km | 14 h 50 m no fares SYD · 9 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 11 h 30 m €528-630 1 stop PVG · 33 km | 20 h 40 m €931-1073 1 stop SYD · 9 km |
| DohaDOH | 8 h 40 m no fares PVG · 33 km | 15 h 15 m €997-1100 SYD · 9 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 | Shanghai | Sydney |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Putonghua | English |
| Currency | Yuan Renminbi (CNY) | Australian Dollar (AUD) |
| Sockets | ACI220 V, 50 Hz | I230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Left |
| Time zone | UTC+8 | UTC+10, UTC+11 in summer |
| Emergency number | Police 110, ambulance 120, fire 119 | 000 |
| Elevation | 4 m | 6 m |
| Main airport | Shanghai Pudong International Airport (PVG)33 km from centre200 non-stop destinations | Sydney Kingsford Smith International Airport (SYD)9 km from centre94 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 6 days | 11 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Shanghai | Sydney |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 24,870,895 | 5,450,496 |
| People per km² | 3,922 | 449 |
| Museums within 10 km | 44 | 38 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 0 | 2 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 64 | 79 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 5 months | 6 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Shanghai or Sydney somewhere new.