Toronto or Montreal?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on beaches & swimming and places to eat with your weighting.
Wins on 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 Montreal if the appeal is green space inside the city and the widest range of kitchens, and if you are travelling in high summer. It has no swimming to speak of and colder edges to the year.
Choose Toronto if you want lake swimming, with 58 beaches and water at 21°C in August, more restaurants and bars within reach of the centre, and more to do with children.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Toronto leads by 43 points.43
| Toronto | Montreal | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 43 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 1 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 58 | 7 |
| Coast distance | 533 km | 276 km |
| Water distance | 5 km | — |
Places to eat. Toronto leads by 8 points.8
| Toronto | Montreal | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 82 | 74 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 2,133 | 1,016 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 39 | 49 |
Museums & heritage. Toronto leads by 6 points.6
| Toronto | Montreal | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 43 | 37 |
| Museums within 10 km | 35 | 39 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 25 | 19 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 71 | 49 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 0 | 0 |
Nightlife. Toronto leads by 7 points.7
| Toronto | Montreal | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 69 | 62 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 1,500 | 1,012 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 966 | 493 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 64 | 49 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 103 | 74 |
Nature & day trips. Montreal leads by 10 points.10
| Toronto | Montreal | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 26 | 36 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 2 | 2 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 68 hectares | 189 hectares |
Good for families. Toronto leads by 7 points.7
| Toronto | Montreal | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 57 | 50 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 23 | 11 |
| Park area within 2 km | 68 hectares | 189 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 4 | 1 |
Sights concentration. Toronto leads by 5 points.5
| Toronto | Montreal | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 61 | 56 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 128 | 98 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Toronto and Montreal are level on 54.
| Toronto | Montreal | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 54 | 54 |
| Price level global | 84 | 84 |
| Daily budget | — | — |
Year-round weather. Toronto leads by 5 points.5
| Toronto | Montreal | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 55 | 50 |
| Monthly daytime high | -0.2 °C to 27.4 °C | -3.5 °C to 26.5 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 51 mm to 85 mm | 69 mm to 121 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 0 |
Where they differ
Montreal's advantage is green space and variety at the table. It has about three times as much park space near the centre, which shows in how the city walks, and its range of kitchens is the wider of the two. The countryside around both is protected to the same modest extent, 2%.
Toronto counters with about twice as many restaurants near the centre, and it is the only one of the pair where you can swim: 58 beaches against Montreal's 7, and lake water at 21°C in August.
Where they are alike
The year runs almost identically. Both peak in July at 27°C, and neither has a dry month; rain is spread through the year, with no month at 40mm or less.
The centres are comparable too: both put a similar stock of notable places within walking distance, Toronto's slightly more tightly grouped. Museum counts are close as well, and neither has a UNESCO-listed site within day-trip reach, so heritage is what the city itself holds rather than what surrounds it.
Which traveller are you?
Families travelling with children who swim should take Toronto: 58 beaches, lake water at 21°C in August, and four theme parks within reach against Montreal's one; attractions also cluster nearer the centre.
If eating and going out is the point, both work, but differently. Toronto keeps more restaurants, bars and clubs within walking reach of the centre; Montreal spreads its nightlife wider and offers a broader mix of kitchens.
Anyone who wants parks to walk in rather than museums to tick off, and who is not planning big excursions, is better served by Montreal, which has far more green space near the centre; protected countryside is scarce around both.
What the numbers don't tell you
The value figures here say nothing about these two cities against each other. They come from a national price level, identical for both by construction, and this dataset carries no daily budget for either, so no cost comparison between Montreal and Toronto is possible in any direction.
Toronto's beach count is a summer fact, not a year-round one: the lake reaches 21°C only in August and sits near 3-4°C through winter, so those beaches are closed to swimming most of the year. Note also that no sunshine figure is recorded for Toronto, so that side of the weather comparison is unmeasured, not low.
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. Toronto: 1991-2020 normals, Toronto City (1.1 km from centre). Montreal: 1991-2020 normals, Montreal McTavish (3.2 km from centre).
Montreal is at its best from June to September, with highs of 22-27°C. Rain falls right through that window, 88-109mm a month, and the shoulder cools quickly, 13°C by October.
Toronto covers the same summer stretch at much the same temperatures but with less rain, 62-85mm, and it adds lake water at 21°C in August. It also holds its form longer: October still reaches 15°C, and the early-autumn weeks are the strongest case for choosing it over Montreal.
Getting there
| Flying from | Toronto | Montreal |
|---|---|---|
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 1 h 20 m €244-359 YYZ · 20 km | 1 h 20 m €231-372 1 stop YUL · 16 km |
| QuebecYQB | 1 h 30 m no fares YYZ · 20 km | 55 m no fares YUL · 16 km |
| Punta CanaPUJ | 4 h 10 m €500-667 2 stops YYZ · 20 km | 4 h 15 m no fares YUL · 16 km |
| CancunCUN | 3 h 45 m no fares YYZ · 20 km | 4 h 10 m no fares YUL · 16 km |
| ChicagoORD, MDW, DPA, PWK +1 | 1 h 30 m €185-501 YYZ · 20 km | 2 h 5 m no fares YUL · 16 km |
| WashingtonIAD, DCA | 1 h 20 m €183-189 YYZ · 20 km | 1 h 35 m no fares YUL · 16 km |
| CalgaryYYC | 3 h 50 m €180-198 YYZ · 20 km | 4 h 10 m €208-313 YUL · 16 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 7 h 45 m €477 YYZ · 20 km | 7 h 10 m €308-372 YUL · 16 km |
| CasablancaCMN | 7 h 55 m no fares YYZ · 20 km | 7 h 20 m no fares YUL · 16 km |
| SeoulICN, GMP | 13 h 10 m no fares YYZ · 20 km | 13 h 5 m no fares YUL · 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
| Measure | Toronto | Montreal |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | French, English | French, English |
| Currency | Canadian Dollar (CAD) | Canadian Dollar (CAD) |
| Sockets | AB120 V, 60 Hz | AB120 V, 60 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer | UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer |
| Emergency number | 911 | 911 |
| Elevation | 76 m | 31 m |
| Main airport | Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ)20 km from centre189 non-stop destinations | Montreal / Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (YUL)16 km from centre164 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 10 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Toronto | Montreal |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 2,794,356 | 1,895,211 |
| People per km² | 4,434 | 3,806 |
| Museums within 10 km | 32 | 37 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 0 | 0 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 102 | 97 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 1 month | – |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Toronto or Montreal somewhere new.