Shanghai or Tokyo?
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 value for money with your weighting.
Wins on museums & heritage 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.
The verdict
Choose Shanghai if you are travelling with children: about twice as many tourist attractions near the centre as Tokyo, slightly more theme parks within reach, and similar park space near the middle.
Choose Tokyo if museums and walkable sightseeing decide it, with far more museums, a UNESCO-listed place within day-trip reach, and about twice as many notable places within walking distance of the centre.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Tokyo leads by 4 points.4
| Shanghai | Tokyo | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 17 | 21 |
| Swim season months | 5 | 4 |
| Beaches 10 km | 0 | 1 |
| Coast distance | 18 km | 5 km |
| Water distance | 18 km | 5 km |
Museums & heritage. Tokyo leads by 21 points.21
| Shanghai | Tokyo | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 45 | 66 |
| Museums within 10 km | 108 | 302 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 28 | 52 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 26 | 17 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 0 | 1 |
Nature & day trips. Tokyo leads by 16 points.16
| Shanghai | Tokyo | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 42 | 58 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 9 | — |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 82 | 85 |
| Park area within 2 km | 83 hectares | 85 hectares |
Good for families. Shanghai leads by 10 points.10
| Shanghai | Tokyo | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 81 | 71 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 86 | 40 |
| Park area within 2 km | 83 hectares | 85 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 10 | 9 |
Sights concentration. Tokyo leads by 9 points.9
| Shanghai | Tokyo | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 51 | 60 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 73 | 121 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Shanghai leads by 9 points.9
| Shanghai | Tokyo | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 79 | 70 |
| Price level global | 49 | 62.4 |
| Daily budget | — | — |
Year-round weather. Shanghai leads by 1 points.1
| Shanghai | Tokyo | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 65 | 64 |
| Monthly daytime high | 8.5 °C to 33.2 °C | 10 °C to 31.5 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 43 mm to 216 mm | 57 mm to 237 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 0 |
Where they differ
Shanghai suits a trip built around attractions rather than collections: about twice as many tourist attractions near the centre as Tokyo, 10 theme parks within reach against Tokyo's 9, and park space near the middle much the same in both.
Tokyo has roughly three times as many museums, plus a UNESCO-listed place within day-trip reach where Shanghai has none, so days beyond the city have more to aim at. Its centre is denser too, with about twice as many notable places within walking distance.
Where they are alike
The weather works much the same way in both. Shanghai runs slightly warmer, with daytime highs of 9-33°C against Tokyo's 10-32°C: cold midwinters, hot summers, and no genuinely dry month either side.
Neither is a swimming trip: the sea sits 18km from Shanghai's centre and 5km from Tokyo's, with one beach near Tokyo and none at Shanghai. Park space near the centre is similar in both.
Which traveller are you?
Families with children: Shanghai. About twice as many tourist attractions near the centre, slightly more theme parks within reach, and park space near the middle that matches Tokyo's, so short days are easy to fill.
Museum-led travellers: Tokyo, with roughly three times as many museums and a UNESCO-listed place within day-trip reach that Shanghai cannot match, giving both indoor days in the city and a reason to head out.
Short-break walkers: Tokyo again, with about twice as many notable places within walking distance of the centre, less time spent in transit. If warm sea matters, Shanghai has 5 months at 21°C or more against Tokyo's 4.
What the numbers don't tell you
No cost comparison is possible here: there is no daily budget figure for either city, so nothing on this page tells you which trip costs more day to day. Price the two separately before deciding.
The sea figures flatter both. Shanghai's water reaches 28°C in August, but August is also its wettest month at 216mm, and the coast sits 18km from the centre; Tokyo's beach is closer at 5km, though its warm months carry heavy rain. Warm water and dry weather rarely arrive together in either city.
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). Tokyo: 1991-2020 normals, Tokyo (3.6 km from centre).
Shanghai's best window is autumn. October brings 23°C with 64mm of rain, against 237mm in Tokyo that month, and September works too despite heavier rain. May is the other good spell, 26°C and 84mm.
Tokyo peaks in May and June at 24-26°C, though rain runs 140-168mm, and it holds up better than Shanghai in January and February, when highs of 10-11°C come with 57-60mm against Shanghai's 9-11°C and 65-69mm. October is its wettest stretch, so autumn is the weaker choice there.
Getting there
| Flying from | Shanghai | Tokyo |
|---|---|---|
| SeoulICN, GMP | 1 h 40 m €173-183 PVG · 33 km | 2 h 10 m €124-187 NRT · 56 km |
| BeijingPEK, PKX | 2 h 0 m €150-154 PVG · 33 km | 3 h 10 m €333-353 HND · 18 km |
| Hong KongHKG | 2 h 10 m €153-159 PVG · 33 km | 4 h 10 m €255-268 NRT · 56 km |
| ChengduTFU, CTU | 2 h 35 m €216-247 PVG · 33 km | 4 h 40 m no fares NRT · 56 km |
| OsakaKIX, ITM, UKB | 2 h 10 m €244-294 PVG · 33 km | 1 h 10 m €106-119 HND · 18 km |
| GuangzhouCAN | 2 h 5 m €127-144 PVG · 33 km | 4 h 5 m €300-381 HND · 18 km |
| BangkokBKK, DMK | 4 h 5 m €170-196 PVG · 33 km | 6 h 10 m €318-337 NRT · 56 km |
| Los AngelesLAX, BUR, SNA, VNY | 12 h 55 m €606-798 1 stop PVG · 33 km | 11 h 0 m €789-943 HND · 18 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 11 h 30 m €528-630 1 stop PVG · 33 km | 11 h 55 m €820-907 1 stop HND · 18 km |
| DohaDOH | 8 h 40 m no fares PVG · 33 km | 10 h 25 m €931-1048 1 stop HND · 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 | Shanghai | Tokyo |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Putonghua | Japanese |
| Currency | Yuan Renminbi (CNY) | Yen (JPY) |
| Sockets | ACI220 V, 50 Hz | AB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the region |
| Driving side | Right | Left |
| Time zone | UTC+8 | UTC+9 |
| Emergency number | Police 110, ambulance 120, fire 119 | Police 110, fire 119 |
| Elevation | 4 m | 6 m |
| Main airport | Shanghai Pudong International Airport (PVG)33 km from centre200 non-stop destinations | Tokyo Haneda International Airport (HND)18 km from centre97 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 6 days | 16 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Shanghai | Tokyo |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 24,870,895 | 14,264,798 |
| People per km² | 3,922 | 6,501 |
| Museums within 10 km | 44 | 191 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 0 | 1 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 64 | 125 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 5 months | 4 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Shanghai or Tokyo somewhere new.