Zagreb or Dubrovnik?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on nightlife and nature & day trips with your weighting.
Wins on beaches & swimming 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 Dubrovnik if the trip is built around swimming and the sea: 43 beaches within reach, five months warm enough to swim, and UNESCO-listed places within day-trip range that Zagreb cannot match.
Choose Zagreb if you would rather spend the days walking a compact centre, eating across a wider range of kitchens and staying out late, with more parkland and protected country on the doorstep.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Dubrovnik leads by 77 points.77
| Zagreb | Dubrovnik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 77 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 5 |
| Beaches 10 km | 8 | 43 |
| Coast distance | 117 km | 0 km |
| Water distance | — | 0 km |
Places to eat. Zagreb leads by 14 points.14
| Zagreb | Dubrovnik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 52 | 38 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 374 | 206 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 27 | 18 |
Museums & heritage. Dubrovnik leads by 4 points.4
| Zagreb | Dubrovnik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 45 | 49 |
| Museums within 10 km | 41 | 18 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 40 | 17 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 98 | 94 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 0 | 3 |
Nightlife. Zagreb leads by 41 points.41
| Zagreb | Dubrovnik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 61 | 20 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 1,009 | 128 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 571 | 110 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 57 | 86 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 63 | 13 |
Nature & day trips. Zagreb leads by 29 points.29
| Zagreb | Dubrovnik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 34 | 5 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 9 | 4 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 4 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 51 |
| Park area within 2 km | 52 hectares | 6 hectares |
Good for families. Zagreb leads by 7 points.7
| Zagreb | Dubrovnik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 28 | 21 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 7 | 12 |
| Park area within 2 km | 52 hectares | 6 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 0 | 1 |
Sights concentration. Zagreb leads by 16 points.16
| Zagreb | Dubrovnik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 60 | 44 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 122 | 48 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Zagreb and Dubrovnik are level on 80.
| Zagreb | Dubrovnik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 80 | 80 |
| Price level global | 48.5 | 48.5 |
| Daily budget | €138 | €138 |
Year-round weather. Dubrovnik leads by 3 points.3
| Zagreb | Dubrovnik | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 65 |
| Monthly daytime high | 5.4 °C to 28.5 °C | 11 °C to 29.1 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 47 mm to 104 mm | 54 mm to 198 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 0 |
Where they differ
Dubrovnik is the swimming trip: 43 beaches nearby against Zagreb's 8, and sea at 21°C or above for five months of the year, where Zagreb has no coast at all. Its tourist attractions and its nearest theme park sit within easy reach of the centre.
Zagreb has many times as many places to drink and nightclubs, about twice as many restaurants near the centre, and far more park space close in; 9% of the land around it is protected against 4% around Dubrovnik.
Where they are alike
Weather is where they sit closest. Both reach 29°C in the warmest month, both are coolest in January, and neither has a month at 40mm of rain or less.
Museums and family appeal are close too. Each has a fair museum offering, Zagreb the larger count, Dubrovnik the UNESCO-listed sites within day-trip reach. Neither is built around children: Dubrovnik leans on attractions near the centre, Zagreb on park space.
Which traveller are you?
If swimming decides the trip, Dubrovnik: 43 beaches nearby and sea reaching 26°C in August. Zagreb has no coast, so water is simply not part of the visit.
Anyone going for evenings out and eating well should take Zagreb: many times as many bars and clubs, roughly double the restaurants near the centre, and a walkable core holding far more notable places.
Families and walkers split. Zagreb has the park space and 9% protected land around it for day trips; Dubrovnik counters with more attractions near the centre and one theme park within reach.
What the numbers don't tell you
The value comparison between these two carries no information. It is a national price level, identical for both by construction, and the €138 daily budget beside it is one country-wide estimate rather than a measurement of either city. Neither is the cheaper trip on this evidence.
Dubrovnik's beach strength is also its constraint: the warmest sea and the driest weather land in July and August, and roughly 42,000 residents host that demand, so the best conditions and the heaviest crowds arrive together. Its year-round weather reading hides the same narrowing, since autumn is the wettest part of the year.
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. Zagreb: 1991-2020 normals, Zagreb / Gric (0.6 km from centre). Dubrovnik: 1999-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Dubrovnik / Cilipi (15.3 km from centre).
Dubrovnik is at its best from June to August: highs of 26-29°C, sea at 23-26°C and the year's least rain, 54-71mm a month. From September the rain turns heavy, above 140mm a month into winter, so the swimming window closes quickly.
Zagreb suits late spring and early summer, when highs of 23-27°C arrive before the wettest stretch; rain builds through the season and September is its wettest month at 104mm, so a city visit reads better in May than in autumn.
Getting there
| Flying from | Zagreb | Dubrovnik |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 2 h 15 m no fares ZAG · 11 km | 2 h 40 m no fares DBV · 16 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 1 h 30 m no fares ZAG · 11 km | 2 h 0 m €181-222 1 stop DBV · 16 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 55 m no fares ZAG · 11 km | 2 h 20 m €63-108 DBV · 16 km |
| MunichMUC | 1 h 10 m no fares ZAG · 11 km | 1 h 40 m €240-268 DBV · 16 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 2 h 0 m €153-254 ZAG · 11 km | 1 h 40 m €255-303 1 stop DBV · 16 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 2 h 0 m no fares ZAG · 11 km | 2 h 25 m €182-228 1 stop DBV · 16 km |
| ViennaVIE | 1 h 0 m no fares ZAG · 11 km | 1 h 25 m €66-134 DBV · 16 km |
| DublinDUB | 2 h 50 m no fares ZAG · 11 km | 3 h 15 m €135-178 2 stops DBV · 16 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 20 m no fares ZAG · 11 km | 1 h 15 m €55-130 DBV · 16 km |
| Tel Aviv YafoTLV | 3 h 15 m no fares ZAG · 11 km | 2 h 50 m €274-389 TIV · 57 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 | Zagreb | Dubrovnik |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Croatian | 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 | 127 m | 10 m |
| Main airport | Zagreb Franjo Tuđman International Airport (ZAG)11 km from centre60 non-stop destinations | Dubrovnik Ruđer Bošković Airport (DBV)16 km from centre74 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 14 days | 14 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Zagreb | Dubrovnik |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 767,131 | 41,562 |
| Museums within 10 km | 27 | 7 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 0 | 3 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 42 | 32 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | – | 5 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Zagreb or Dubrovnik somewhere new.