Tokyo or Hong Kong?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Too close to call, 2 points apart
Wins on museums & heritage and nightlife with your weighting.
Wins on beaches & swimming and year-round weather 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 Hong Kong if you want the sea in the trip: the water starts at the centre, 65 beaches are within reach, and the swimming season runs twice as long as Tokyo's.
Choose Tokyo if the trip is built on museums, nightlife and keeping children occupied: many times more museums, a UNESCO-listed place within day-trip reach, far more bars and clubs, and more theme parks.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Hong Kong leads by 66 points.66
| Tokyo | Hong Kong | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 21 | 87 |
| Swim season months | 4 | 8 |
| Beaches 10 km | 1 | 65 |
| Coast distance | 5 km | 0 km |
| Water distance | 5 km | 0 km |
Places to eat. Tokyo leads by 2 points.2
| Tokyo | Hong Kong | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 90 | 88 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 6,936 | 4,325 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 25 | 32 |
Museums & heritage. Tokyo leads by 30 points.30
| Tokyo | Hong Kong | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 66 | 36 |
| Museums within 10 km | 302 | 50 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 52 | 17 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 17 | 34 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 1 | 0 |
Nightlife. Tokyo leads by 24 points.24
| Tokyo | Hong Kong | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 95 | 71 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 6,895 | 1,948 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 3,033 | 1,154 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 44 | 59 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 58 | 37 |
Nature & day trips. Hong Kong leads by 6 points.6
| Tokyo | Hong Kong | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 58 | 64 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | — | 8 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 85 | 29 |
| Park area within 2 km | 85 hectares | 52 hectares |
Good for families. Tokyo leads by 13 points.13
| Tokyo | Hong Kong | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 71 | 58 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 40 | 27 |
| Park area within 2 km | 85 hectares | 52 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 9 | 5 |
Sights concentration. Hong Kong leads by 9 points.9
| Tokyo | Hong Kong | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 60 | 69 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 121 | 204 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Tokyo leads by 7 points.7
| Tokyo | Hong Kong | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 70 | 63 |
| Price level global | 62.4 | 72 |
| Daily budget | — | — |
Year-round weather. Hong Kong leads by 10 points.10
| Tokyo | Hong Kong | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 64 | 74 |
| Monthly daytime high | 10 °C to 31.5 °C | 19.4 °C to 31.3 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 57 mm to 237 mm | 23 mm to 493 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 4 |
Where they differ
Hong Kong puts the sea at the centre, 0km away against 5km in Tokyo, with 65 beaches nearby against Tokyo's 1 and twice as long a swimming season. Its centre also holds about twice as many notable places within walking distance.
Tokyo has many times as many museums and one UNESCO-listed place within day-trip reach where Hong Kong has none. It also has about three times as many places to drink and twice as many nightclubs, twice the central park space, and 9 theme parks against 5.
Where they are alike
Eating out is the strongest thing both cities do, and neither is short of it. Tokyo has about twice as many restaurants near the centre; Hong Kong answers with a somewhat wider spread of kitchens. Either way, dinner is not the constraint on the trip.
They are also close on green space and on how much sits within walking distance: Tokyo has more central park space, Hong Kong a denser core, and both work as day-trip bases.
Which traveller are you?
If swimming matters, Hong Kong is the only real answer here: the sea starts at the centre, 65 beaches sit within reach, and the water stays swimmable for twice as much of the year as in Tokyo.
For anyone building days around exhibitions and late nights, Tokyo is the stronger base, with many times more museums, a UNESCO-listed place within day-trip reach, and roughly three times as many places to drink.
Families with children will find more to work with in Tokyo: more attractions near the centre, twice the central park space, and 9 theme parks within reach against Hong Kong's 5.
What the numbers don't tell you
Hong Kong's strength on beaches and its warmest sea both land in the months with the heaviest rain: August has the sea at 29°C and 453mm of rain. The best weather months are the ones when the water has cooled. Tokyo's autumn is warm but its wettest stretch, so a September trip trades comfort for rain.
No cost comparison is possible here. The data carries no daily budget figure for either city, so nothing in it says which trip works out dearer, and the value ranking rests on a different measure entirely. Treat it as a ranking, not as a price.
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. Tokyo: 1991-2020 normals, Tokyo (3.6 km from centre). Hong Kong: 1991-2020 normals, King's Park (4.4 km from centre).
Hong Kong is at its best from October to December, when highs ease from 28°C to 21°C and rain drops to 36mm in November and 31mm in December, after a summer in which June alone brings 493mm. The sea is still 27°C in October.
Tokyo's clearest window is May, at 24°C with 140mm. September is warmer at 28°C but wet, and October wetter still at 237mm, while January highs of 10°C make winter the weakest stretch.
Getting there
| Flying from | Tokyo | Hong Kong |
|---|---|---|
| SeoulICN, GMP | 2 h 10 m €124-187 NRT · 56 km | 3 h 5 m €168-188 HKG · 25 km |
| ShanghaiPVG, SHA | 2 h 45 m €296-314 HND · 18 km | 2 h 10 m €147-156 HKG · 25 km |
| BangkokBKK, DMK | 6 h 10 m €318-337 NRT · 56 km | 2 h 40 m €170-184 HKG · 25 km |
| BeijingPEK, PKX | 3 h 10 m €333-353 HND · 18 km | 3 h 0 m €127-156 HKG · 25 km |
| OsakaKIX, ITM, UKB | 1 h 10 m €106-119 HND · 18 km | 3 h 35 m €209-232 HKG · 25 km |
| ManilaMNL | 4 h 15 m €307-323 NRT · 56 km | 2 h 0 m €134-157 HKG · 25 km |
| Los AngelesLAX, BUR, SNA, VNY | 11 h 0 m €789-943 HND · 18 km | 14 h 25 m no fares HKG · 25 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 11 h 40 m €786-939 1 stop HND · 18 km | 11 h 25 m €630-670 1 stop HKG · 25 km |
| DohaDOH | 10 h 25 m €931-1048 1 stop HND · 18 km | 8 h 5 m no fares HKG · 25 km |
| Mexico CityMEX, NLU, TLC | 13 h 55 m no fares NRT · 56 km | 17 h 15 m no fares SZX · 54 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 | Tokyo | Hong Kong |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Japanese | Standard Chinese |
| Currency | Yen (JPY) | Hong Kong Dollar (HKD) |
| Sockets | AB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the region | G220 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Left | Left |
| Time zone | UTC+9 | UTC+8 |
| Emergency number | Police 110, fire 119 | 999 |
| Elevation | 6 m | 7 m |
| Main airport | Tokyo Haneda International Airport (HND)18 km from centre97 non-stop destinations | Hong Kong International Airport (HKG)25 km from centre151 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 16 days | 17 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Tokyo | Hong Kong |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 14,264,798 | 7,413,070 |
| People per km² | 6,501 | – |
| Museums within 10 km | 191 | 39 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 1 | 0 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 125 | 76 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 4 months | 8 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Tokyo or Hong Kong somewhere new.