VacationSelector
Castle Square and the Royal Castle, Warsaw
WarsawCastle Square and the Royal Castle
People's Square (Narodni trg), Zadar
ZadarPeople's Square (Narodni trg)

Photos: Warsaw by Raymond Petrik, Pexels License; Zadar by Böhringer Friedrich, CC BY-SA 2.5, cropped.

Warsaw or Zadar?

Our verdict in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities, and the climate month by month, so you can choose for your trip.

Choose Warsaw for

  • live music and the arts
  • nightlife
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on Warsaw’s own page.

Choose Zadar for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Zadar’s own page.

Scoreboard

Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.

Beaches & swimming. Warsaw 12, Zadar 72: Zadar leads by 60 points.
Food & drink. Warsaw 60, Zadar 45: Warsaw leads by 15 points.
Culture & sights. Warsaw 70, Zadar 55: Warsaw leads by 15 points.
Nightlife. Warsaw 66, Zadar 38: Warsaw leads by 28 points.
Nature & outdoors. Warsaw 47, Zadar 82: Zadar leads by 35 points.
Day trips. Warsaw 52, Zadar 70: Zadar leads by 18 points.
Good for families. Warsaw 62, Zadar 55: Warsaw leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Warsaw 72, Zadar 58: Warsaw leads by 14 points.
Shopping & style. Warsaw 55, Zadar 27: Warsaw leads by 28 points.
Affordability. Warsaw 64, Zadar 52: Warsaw leads by 12 points.
Live music & performing arts. Warsaw 63, Zadar 28: Warsaw leads by 35 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Warsaw and Zadar are level on 35.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Warsaw and Zadar.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Warsaw
Best match
55match

Wins on live music and the arts and nightlife with your weighting.

Zadar
51match

Wins on beaches and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Warsaw in July

25 °Cdaytime high
15 °Cnight-time low
83 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
No seasea
16 hdaylight a day

Zadar in July

31 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
29 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
24 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
WarsawZadar

Where the figures come from

Zadar has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Warsaw: 1991-2020 normals, Warszawa-Okecie (7.7 km from centre). Zadar: 1999-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Zadar / Zemunik (9.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureWarsawZadar
Official languagePolishCroatian
CurrencyZloty (PLN)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCE50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation118 m5 m
Main airportWarsaw Chopin Airport (WAW)8 km from centre172 non-stop destinationsZadar Airport (ZAD)10 km from centre66 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureWarsawZadar
City population1,862,40270,779
People per km²3,601-
Museums within 10 km1171
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km12
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 Warsaw or Zadar somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Rainfall where no rain gauge is within 25 km is from the TerraClimate 1991-2020 climatology (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, Scientific Data), read at the city. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. Non-stop route lists from the "Airlines and destinations" tables on English Wikipedia airport articles, by Wikipedia contributors, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Currency from the ISO 4217 register maintained by SIX, cross-checked against country data from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Price level from World Bank open data (PPP conversion factor for private consumption and official exchange rate), CC BY 4.0. Time zones from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0); clock offsets computed from the IANA time zone database. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.