Tokyo or London?
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 beaches & swimming and nature & day trips with your weighting.
Wins on sights concentration and museums & heritage 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 London if you want the major sights within walking distance of one another, the widest range of kitchens, and more UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach.
Choose Tokyo if you want a warmer year, up to 32°C in August, sea warm enough to swim for four months, and more to reach beyond the city, theme parks included.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Tokyo leads by 21 points.21
| Tokyo | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 21 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 4 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 1 | 47 |
| Coast distance | 5 km | 43 km |
| Water distance | 5 km | — |
Places to eat. Tokyo leads by 2 points.2
| Tokyo | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 90 | 88 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 6,936 | 3,317 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 25 | 40 |
Museums & heritage. London leads by 6 points.6
| Tokyo | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 66 | 72 |
| Museums within 10 km | 302 | 148 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 52 | 49 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 17 | 33 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 1 | 4 |
Nightlife. Tokyo and London are level on 95.
| Tokyo | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 95 | 95 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 6,895 | 5,327 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 3,033 | 2,443 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 44 | 46 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 58 | 312 |
Nature & day trips. Tokyo leads by 18 points.18
| Tokyo | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 58 | 40 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | — | 16 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 14 |
| Land share of disc % | 85 | 97 |
| Park area within 2 km | 85 hectares | 84 hectares |
Good for families. London leads by 4 points.4
| Tokyo | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 71 | 75 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 40 | 85 |
| Park area within 2 km | 85 hectares | 84 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 9 | 3 |
Sights concentration. London leads by 29 points.29
| Tokyo | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 60 | 89 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 121 | 649 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Tokyo leads by 16 points.16
| Tokyo | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 70 | 54 |
| Price level global | 62.4 | 84.9 |
| Daily budget | — | — |
Year-round weather. Tokyo leads by 1 points.1
| Tokyo | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 64 | 63 |
| Monthly daytime high | 10 °C to 31.5 °C | 8.2 °C to 23.8 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 57 mm to 237 mm | 38 mm to 67 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 1 |
Where they differ
London's notable places sit many times more densely around the centre, so a short stay covers more on foot and less on trains. It counts 47 beaches within reach against Tokyo's 1, though the sea there never warms enough to swim.
Tokyo comes out ahead for days out of the city, though central park space is much the same in both. Its coast is the swimmable one, with four months of sea at 21°C or more and 26°C at the peak in August.
Where they are alike
Nightlife is where they are level. Tokyo has somewhat more places to drink, London many times as many nightclubs, and in both about half sit near the centre.
They are also close on eating, families and weather. Tokyo has about twice as many restaurants near the centre, London a much wider spread of kitchens. For children, London has about twice as many attractions near the centre, Tokyo 9 theme parks against 3.
Which traveller are you?
A first-time visitor planning to walk should take London: the notable sights sit close together, and 4 UNESCO-listed places lie within day-trip reach against Tokyo's 1.
Families are well served by both. Tokyo wins if theme parks are the point, with 9 within reach against London's 3; London wins if you want attractions and parkland a short walk from the hotel.
Anyone travelling to eat and stay out late can pick either. Tokyo puts more restaurants close to the centre; London spreads across more cuisines and has far more clubs.
What the numbers don't tell you
No cost comparison is possible here. The dataset carries no daily budget figure for either city, so nothing on this page tells you which trip is the more expensive, and the value ratings rest on a different measure that should not be read as a price.
The beach count also misleads. London's 47 beaches come with no month of sea at 21°C or more, so they are places to walk rather than swim. Tokyo's single beach reaches 26°C, but its warm sea months are also its hottest and among its wettest, so swimming weather and comfortable sightseeing weather do not overlap.
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). London: 1991-2020 normals, London Heathrow Airport (22.5 km from centre).
London is at its best from June to August, with highs of 22-24°C and 46-53mm of rain a month, lighter than anything Tokyo gets in summer. Spring is drier still, 38mm in March.
Tokyo suits April and May, when highs run 19-24°C. Midsummer turns hot and heavy, 30-32°C with far more rain, and autumn is wetter again at 221-237mm. Winter is the milder of the two, 10°C in January.
Getting there
| Flying from | Tokyo | London |
|---|---|---|
| SeoulICN, GMP | 2 h 10 m €124-187 NRT · 56 km | 11 h 5 m no fares LHR · 23 km |
| ShanghaiPVG, SHA | 2 h 45 m €296-314 HND · 18 km | 11 h 30 m €665-831 1 stop LHR · 23 km |
| Hong KongHKG | 4 h 10 m €255-268 NRT · 56 km | 12 h 0 m no fares LHR · 23 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 13 h 30 m €813-1004 HND · 18 km | 7 h 10 m €518-651 1 stop LHR · 23 km |
| Los AngelesLAX, BUR, SNA, VNY | 11 h 0 m €789-943 HND · 18 km | 11 h 0 m no fares LHR · 23 km |
| BangkokBKK, DMK | 6 h 10 m €318-337 NRT · 56 km | 11 h 55 m no fares LGW · 40 km |
| BeijingPEK, PKX | 3 h 10 m €333-353 HND · 18 km | 10 h 15 m no fares LHR · 23 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 12 h 5 m €835-923 HND · 18 km | 1 h 5 m €92-144 LHR · 23 km |
| DohaDOH | 10 h 25 m €931-1048 1 stop HND · 18 km | 6 h 50 m no fares LHR · 23 km |
| Mexico CityMEX, NLU, TLC | 13 h 55 m no fares NRT · 56 km | 11 h 10 m no fares LHR · 23 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 | London |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Japanese | English |
| Currency | Yen (JPY) | Pound Sterling (GBP) |
| Sockets | AB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the region | G230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Left | Left |
| Time zone | UTC+9 | UTC, UTC+1 in summer |
| Emergency number | Police 110, fire 119 | 112 or 999 |
| Elevation | 6 m | 4 m |
| Main airport | Tokyo Haneda International Airport (HND)18 km from centre97 non-stop destinations | London Heathrow Airport (LHR)23 km from centre220 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 16 days | 8 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Tokyo | London |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 14,264,798 | 8,799,728 |
| People per km² | 6,501 | 5,598 |
| Museums within 10 km | 191 | 215 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 1 | 4 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 125 | 116 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 4 months | – |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Tokyo or London somewhere new.