Venice or Zadar?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on sights concentration and museums & heritage with your weighting.
Wins on nature & day trips and value for money 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 Venice if you want museums and heritage packed within walking distance of the centre, with 5 UNESCO-listed places in day-trip reach and the widest choice of restaurants nearby.
Choose Zadar if the sea matters more: it begins at the centre, 49 beaches are within reach, and far more of the land around it is protected, better for days out than for gallery days.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Zadar leads by 4 points.4
| Venice | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 69 | 73 |
| Swim season months | 4 | 4 |
| Beaches 10 km | 20 | 49 |
| Coast distance | 4 km | 0 km |
| Water distance | 4 km | 0 km |
Places to eat. Venice leads by 20 points.20
| Venice | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 45 | 25 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 750 | 143 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 10 | 11 |
Museums & heritage. Venice leads by 39 points.39
| Venice | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 72 | 33 |
| Museums within 10 km | 57 | 8 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 45 | 8 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 79 | 100 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 5 | 2 |
Nightlife. Venice leads by 10 points.10
| Venice | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 35 | 25 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 342 | 194 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 306 | 139 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 89 | 72 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 3 | 4 |
Nature & day trips. Zadar leads by 38 points.38
| Venice | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 17 | 55 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 4 | 12 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 70 | 47 |
| Park area within 2 km | 15 hectares | 30 hectares |
Good for families. Venice leads by 26 points.26
| Venice | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 57 | 31 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 72 | 9 |
| Park area within 2 km | 15 hectares | 30 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 3 | 1 |
Sights concentration. Venice leads by 52 points.52
| Venice | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 83 | 31 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 464 | 23 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Zadar leads by 12 points.12
| Venice | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 68 | 80 |
| Price level global | 64.9 | 48.5 |
| Daily budget | €155 | €138 |
Year-round weather. Zadar leads by 3 points.3
| Venice | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 66 | 69 |
| Monthly daytime high | 8 °C to 30.4 °C | 10.4 °C to 31 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 36 mm to 106 mm | 25 mm to 117 mm |
| Dry months | 2 | 2 |
Where they differ
Venice packs many times as many notable places within walking distance of its centre, so a day can be spent on foot without repeating yourself. It also has many times as many museums, and 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Zadar's 2.
Zadar turns outward instead. 12% of the land around it is protected against 4% around Venice, and it has about twice as much park space near the centre, which makes days out of town and green space in it easier to find.
Where they are alike
Weather is where they line up most closely. Both move from a mild winter to a hot summer, Venice across 8-30°C over the year and Zadar across 10-31°C, and neither has a long stretch that rules a trip out.
Swimming and going out are close too. Both give 4 months of sea at 21°C or more, and neither is a late-night city: in both, the bars and clubs sit mostly near the centre rather than spread across town.
Which traveller are you?
If you travel for museums and old buildings, Venice. Its notable places cluster within walking distance of the centre, it has many times as many museums as Zadar, and the choice of restaurants near the centre is far wider.
If you want swimming and time outdoors, Zadar. The sea is 0km from the centre, there are 49 beaches nearby against Venice's 20, and 12% of the surrounding land is protected.
Families are better served in Venice, with many times as many attractions near the centre and 3 theme parks within reach against Zadar's 1, though Zadar offers roughly twice the park space near its centre.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €155 and €138, are national estimates of restaurant and hotel price levels, not measurements of either city. A heavily visited city can sit well above its own country's average, by more than the gap between them, so read them as country context rather than a verdict on either place.
No weather station near Zadar reports sunshine hours, so that figure is missing rather than low, and its monthly picture rests on temperature, rainfall and sea temperature alone. The months that read driest and warmest there, July and August, are also the ones when its beaches are busiest.
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. Venice: 1991-2020 normals, Treviso / S. Angelo (26.1 km from centre). Zadar: 1999-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Zadar / Zemunik (9.9 km from centre).
Venice suits May to July, when highs run 24-30°C and the rain briefly slackens. September is its wettest month at 106mm, so the early-autumn warmth comes with a real chance of being rained on.
Zadar's usable window runs wider. July and August are its driest months at 25-32mm, with highs of 31°C, and September still holds 26°C with the sea at 23°C, so a late trip works better there than in Venice. November turns wet.
Getting there
| Flying from | Venice | Zadar |
|---|---|---|
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 40 m €68-109 VCE · 7 km | 2 h 5 m €169-225 SPU · 107 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 2 h 0 m €46-119 1 stop VCE · 7 km | 2 h 20 m no fares ZAD · 10 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 45 m €190-215 1 stop VCE · 7 km | 2 h 10 m €186-201 1 stop SPU · 107 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 10 m €81-119 VCE · 7 km | 1 h 5 m €294 SPU · 107 km |
| MunichMUC | 1 h 5 m €268-289 VCE · 7 km | 1 h 25 m no fares SPU · 107 km |
| ViennaVIE | 1 h 10 m €65-121 VCE · 7 km | 1 h 10 m €45-192 ZAD · 10 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 1 h 20 m €136-186 1 stop VCE · 7 km | 1 h 40 m €161-226 1 stop ZAD · 10 km |
| MadridMAD | 2 h 20 m €102-159 VCE · 7 km | 2 h 40 m no fares SPU · 107 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 45 m €41-56 VCE · 7 km | 2 h 5 m €108-177 SPU · 107 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 8 h 30 m €637-650 VCE · 7 km | 9 h 0 m no fares SPU · 107 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 | Venice | Zadar |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Italian | Croatian |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CFL230 V, 50 Hz | CF230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 | 112 |
| Elevation | 2 m | 5 m |
| Main airport | Venice Marco Polo Airport (VCE)7 km from centre98 non-stop destinations | Zadar Airport (ZAD)10 km from centre67 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 13 days | 14 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Venice | Zadar |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 250,369 | 70,779 |
| People per km² | 602 | – |
| Museums within 10 km | 52 | 1 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 5 | 2 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 46 | 17 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 4 months | 4 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Venice or Zadar somewhere new.