Vienna 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 places to eat and nightlife with your weighting.
Wins on beaches & swimming and 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 Vienna if the trip is about eating out, museums and evenings that carry on: the range of kitchens and drinking places near the centre is far wider, and most of what you would want to see is within walking distance.
Choose Zadar if you want to swim: 49 beaches nearby and sea at 21°C or more for four months, plus more protected land around it.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Zadar leads by 73 points.73
| Vienna | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 73 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 4 |
| Beaches 10 km | 22 | 49 |
| Coast distance | 10,000 km | 0 km |
| Water distance | — | 0 km |
Places to eat. Vienna leads by 52 points.52
| Vienna | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 77 | 25 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 1,617 | 143 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 37 | 11 |
Museums & heritage. Vienna leads by 48 points.48
| Vienna | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 81 | 33 |
| Museums within 10 km | 192 | 8 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 110 | 8 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 57 | 100 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 3 | 2 |
Nightlife. Vienna leads by 49 points.49
| Vienna | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 74 | 25 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 1,948 | 194 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 1,089 | 139 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 56 | 72 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 108 | 4 |
Nature & day trips. Zadar leads by 23 points.23
| Vienna | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 32 | 55 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 4 | 12 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 47 |
| Park area within 2 km | 93 hectares | 30 hectares |
Good for families. Vienna leads by 38 points.38
| Vienna | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 69 | 31 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 46 | 9 |
| Park area within 2 km | 93 hectares | 30 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 4 | 1 |
Sights concentration. Vienna leads by 44 points.44
| Vienna | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 75 | 31 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 287 | 23 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Zadar leads by 21 points.21
| Vienna | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 59 | 80 |
| Price level global | 76.9 | 48.5 |
| Daily budget | €160 | €138 |
Year-round weather. Zadar leads by 8 points.8
| Vienna | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 61 | 69 |
| Monthly daytime high | 3.3 °C to 26.8 °C | 10.4 °C to 31 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 38 mm to 80 mm | 25 mm to 117 mm |
| Dry months | 1 | 2 |
Where they differ
Vienna has many times as many restaurants near the centre as Zadar, and a far wider range of kitchens with it. The same holds for bars and clubs, where about half sit near the centre, enough that an evening out needs no planning; in Zadar the handful there is mostly central.
Zadar is the one for swimming: 49 beaches nearby against Vienna's 22, and four months with the sea at 21°C or more, topping out at 25°C in August. Vienna has no such window at all.
Where they are alike
Neither city has a dead season. Zadar runs warmer through the year, 10-31°C against Vienna's 3-27°C, but both offer usable shoulder months, a proper summer, and rain that turns up in most months rather than sitting in one half of the year.
They are close on value: the national price levels behind them are €160 for Austria and €138 for Croatia. Both also have country within reach, more protected land around Zadar, more park space near Vienna's centre.
Which traveller are you?
If you are travelling for museums and old buildings, take Vienna: many times as many museums as Zadar, and 3 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Zadar's 2, with most of the centre walkable.
Families are better served in Vienna too: far more attractions near the centre, considerably more park space, and 4 theme parks within reach against Zadar's 1. Zadar's pull for children is the water rather than the town.
Anyone whose trip is built around swimming and time outdoors should take Zadar: 49 beaches nearby, sea at 25°C in August, and a much larger share of protected land around the city.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures are national price levels for restaurants and hotels, €160 for Austria and €138 for Croatia, not measurements of Vienna or Zadar. A capital and a heavily visited coastal town can each sit well away from their own country's average, by more than the gap between the two figures.
No weather station near Zadar records sunshine hours, so that side of the weather comparison is simply unmeasured there; its monthly picture rests on temperature, rainfall and sea temperature alone. And the beach count says nothing about crowding: those beaches are busiest exactly when the sea is warmest, in August.
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. Vienna: 1991-2020 normals, Wien / Hohe Warte (4.7 km from centre). Zadar: 1999-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Zadar / Zemunik (9.9 km from centre).
Vienna is at its best from June to August, when daytime highs reach 25-27°C; those are also among its wettest months at 70-80mm, so plan for showers. The cold end of the year is a hard sell for time spent outdoors.
Zadar's strongest stretch runs May to June and again in September, with highs of 23-28°C and the sea at 22-23°C, warm enough to swim without peak-summer heat. July and August are its driest months at 25-32mm, while November is its wettest at 117mm.
Getting there
| Flying from | Vienna | Zadar |
|---|---|---|
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 50 m €180-245 1 stop VIE · 18 km | 2 h 10 m €186-201 1 stop SPU · 107 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 55 m €112-162 VIE · 18 km | 2 h 5 m €169-225 SPU · 107 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 2 h 10 m €105-189 1 stop VIE · 18 km | 2 h 20 m no fares ZAD · 10 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 35 m €84-160 VIE · 18 km | 1 h 5 m €294 SPU · 107 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 1 h 25 m €143-152 VIE · 18 km | 1 h 40 m €161-226 1 stop ZAD · 10 km |
| MunichMUC | 1 h 5 m €230-294 1 stop VIE · 18 km | 1 h 25 m no fares SPU · 107 km |
| MilanMXP, BGY, LIN | 1 h 25 m €49-71 VIE · 18 km | 1 h 20 m no fares ZAD · 10 km |
| StockholmARN, BMA, NYO, VST | 2 h 10 m €111-165 VIE · 18 km | 2 h 45 m €123-165 1 stop SPU · 107 km |
| ZurichZRH | 1 h 25 m €170-237 1 stop VIE · 18 km | 1 h 35 m €247-298 1 stop SPU · 107 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 8 h 40 m €736-786 1 stop VIE · 18 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 2026-09 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 | Vienna | Zadar |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | German, Austrian Sign Language | Croatian |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CF230 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 | 151 m | 5 m |
| Main airport | Vienna International Airport (VIE)18 km from centre204 non-stop destinations | Zadar Airport (ZAD)10 km from centre67 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 16 days | 14 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Vienna | Zadar |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 2,028,289 | 70,779 |
| People per km² | 4,890 | – |
| Museums within 10 km | 152 | 1 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 3 | 2 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 113 | 17 |
| 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 Vienna or Zadar somewhere new.