VacationSelector

Split or Dubrovnik?

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

Your match

Split
✓ Best match
51
match

Wins on nature & day trips and nightlife with your weighting.

Dubrovnik
44
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and sights concentration 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 Dubrovnik if you want a compact trip: attractions cluster near the centre, there is 1 theme park within reach, and the sea stays swimmable a month longer into autumn.

Choose Split if you want more space and more to do after dark: far more park space and protected land around the city, roughly twice the beach choice, and about three times as many places to drink.

Scoreboard

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

SplitDubrovnik
Beaches & swimming. Dubrovnik leads by 4 points.4
SplitDubrovnik
Score7377
Swim season months45
Beaches 10 km8743
Coast distance0 km0 km
Water distance0 km0 km
Places to eat. Split and Dubrovnik are level on 38.
SplitDubrovnik
Score3838
Restaurants within 2 km of centre268206
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km1518
Museums & heritage. Split leads by 3 points.3
SplitDubrovnik
Score5249
Museums within 10 km1818
Museums within 2 km of centre1617
Share of museums within 2 km %8994
Unesco sites within 50 km43
Nightlife. Split leads by 21 points.21
SplitDubrovnik
Score4120
Drinking venues within 4 km379128
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre263110
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %6986
Nightclubs within 4 km2313
Nature & day trips. Split leads by 33 points.33
SplitDubrovnik
Score385
Protected land share 50 km %94
Landscape blanket share 50 km %04
Land share of disc %6251
Park area within 2 km30 hectares6 hectares
Good for families. Split leads by 5 points.5
SplitDubrovnik
Score2621
Tourist attractions within 2 km912
Park area within 2 km30 hectares6 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km01
Sights concentration. Dubrovnik leads by 2 points.2
SplitDubrovnik
Score4244
Notable places within 2 km4348
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Split and Dubrovnik are level on 80.
SplitDubrovnik
Score8080
Price level global48.548.5
Daily budget€138€138
Year-round weather. Split leads by 4 points.4
SplitDubrovnik
Score6965
Monthly daytime high10.7 °C to 31 °C11 °C to 29.1 °C
Monthly rainfall25 mm to 117 mm54 mm to 198 mm
Dry months20
0255075100

Where they differ

Dubrovnik keeps more of its draw inside the walkable centre: more tourist attractions close in, and 1 theme park within reach where Split has none. Its sea stays at 21°C or above for 5 months against Split's 4, so the swimming season runs a little longer.

Split has the wider hinterland and the busier evenings: 9% of the surrounding land is protected against 4% around Dubrovnik, many times more park space near the centre, and about three times as many places to drink, most of them central.

Where they are alike

Eating out lands in much the same place: Split has somewhat more restaurants near the centre, Dubrovnik a somewhat wider spread of kitchens, and neither stands out for food alone.

Both put roughly the same number of notable places within walking distance of the centre, and hold comparable museum collections, with 4 UNESCO-listed sites in day-trip range of Split against 3 from Dubrovnik. The sea is 0km from both centres, so swimming is a walk rather than a journey.

Which traveller are you?

Swimmers with a fixed week are better served by Split, which has 87 beaches nearby against Dubrovnik's 43. Travelling in autumn instead, Dubrovnik holds sea at 21°C or more for an extra month.

Anyone who wants evenings out should take Split: about three times as many places to drink and twice the nightclubs, most of them near the centre, where Dubrovnik's after-dark options are thin.

Families are more evenly split. Split offers much more park space near the centre and more protected land within reach, while Dubrovnik counters with more attractions close in and 1 theme park.

What the numbers don't tell you

The value comparison between these two carries no information: it is a national price level, identical for both by construction, and the €138 daily budget beside it is one national estimate rather than a measurement of either city. Nothing here tells you which is cheaper.

Beach and month figures both flatter the peak. Split's 87 beaches count everything along the coast, and the warmest, driest weeks are also the most crowded, with highs reaching 31°C. The quiet months are the wet ones: Dubrovnik's late autumn runs to 198mm, so an off-season visit is largely indoors.

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
Split
11
12
15
18
23
28
31
31
25
21
16
12
Dubrovnik
11
12
14
18
22
26
29
29
25
21
17
13
Sea temperature, °C
Split
14
13
14
15
18
22
24
25
23
21
19
16
Dubrovnik
14
14
14
15
19
23
25
26
24
21
19
16
Rainfall, mm
Split
73
64
59
62
58
49
25
32
82
80
117
99
Dubrovnik
141
121
112
127
90
71
54
62
143
145
192
198
Daylight, hours per day
Split
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Dubrovnik
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Split
5
5
7
7
9
10
12
11
8
7
4
4
Dubrovnik
4
4
6
6
8
9
11
10
7
6
4
4

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Split: 1991-2020 normals, Split / Marjan (0.9 km from centre). Dubrovnik: 1999-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Dubrovnik / Cilipi (15.3 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Dubrovnik peaks in high summer: highs near 29°C, the warmer sea of the two at 26°C, and its driest weeks of the year. Swimming holds into October, but the autumn is heavy, with 143mm in September and more after that.

Split's season runs longer at both ends. May and June are warm before the midsummer peak of 31°C, which suits anyone avoiding real heat, and rain is lighter all year: 25mm at the driest and 82mm in September, when Dubrovnik gets far more.

Getting there

Flying fromSplitDubrovnik
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
2 h 30 m
€88-160
SPU · 12 km
2 h 40 m
no fares
DBV · 16 km
ZagrebZAG
55 m
no fares
SPU · 12 km
1 h 10 m
no fares
DBV · 16 km
ViennaVIE
1 h 15 m
€233-281
SPU · 12 km
1 h 25 m
€66-134
DBV · 16 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
2 h 5 m
€169-225
SPU · 12 km
2 h 20 m
€63-108
DBV · 16 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
1 h 45 m
€169-224
SPU · 12 km
2 h 0 m
€181-222
1 stop
DBV · 16 km
RomeFCO, CIA
1 h 5 m
€294
SPU · 12 km
1 h 15 m
€55-130
DBV · 16 km
AmsterdamAMS
2 h 10 m
€186-201
1 stop
SPU · 12 km
2 h 25 m
€182-228
1 stop
DBV · 16 km
DublinDUB
3 h 0 m
no fares
SPU · 12 km
3 h 15 m
€135-178
2 stops
DBV · 16 km
MunichMUC
1 h 25 m
no fares
SPU · 12 km
1 h 40 m
€240-268
DBV · 16 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
9 h 0 m
no fares
SPU · 12 km
9 h 10 m
no fares
DBV · 16 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

MeasureSplitDubrovnik
Official languageCroatianCroatian
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation0 m10 m
Main airportSplit Saint Jerome Airport (SPU)12 km from centre70 non-stop destinationsDubrovnik Ruđer Bošković Airport (DBV)16 km from centre74 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureSplitDubrovnik
City population160,57741,562
Museums within 10 km117
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km43
Distinct cuisines in the centre3132
Swim season, months above 21 °C4 months5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Split or Dubrovnik 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. 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

Scores follow rubric v2; snapshot generated 2026-09-01. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.