In 2025, Kyoto's busiest month was May (9.5% of its guest nights) and Nara's was May (10.4%). The quietest were February (6.3%) and January (5.7%). Their two busiest months carried 19.0% and 20.1% of the year; Japan's survey is a sample, so we do not say which is more seasonal.
Kyoto and Nara, month by month
Each chart shows what share of the place's 2025 guest nights fell in each month, on the same scale; the two busiest months are highlighted.1
Share of the year, every month
| Month | Kyoto | Nara |
|---|---|---|
| January | 6.7% | 5.7% |
| February | 6.3% | 6.0% |
| March | 8.3% | 8.8% |
| April | 9.5% | 9.2% |
| May | 9.5% | 10.4% |
| June | 8.2% | 7.9% |
| July | 7.8% | 8.1% |
| August | 8.6% | 9.7% |
| September | 8.4% | 8.0% |
| October | 9.5% | 9.5% |
| November | 8.9% | 9.1% |
| December | 8.3% | 7.6% |
The key facts side by side
| Kyoto | Nara | |
|---|---|---|
| Busiest month | May, 9.5% | May, 10.4% |
| Quietest month | February, 6.3% | January, 5.7% |
| Two busiest months | 19.0% of the year | 20.1% of the year |
| Busiest vs quietest | 1.5 times as busy | 1.8 times as busy |
| From abroad | Guests from outside Japan spent 55.2% of Kyoto's guest nights in 2025. Source page | Guests from outside Japan spent 16.4% of Nara's guest nights in 2025. Source page |
| Visited from abroad | Ranked by nights spent by guests from outside Japan in 2025, Kyoto comes 45th from the bottom of Japan's 47 prefectures. Source page | Ranked by nights spent by guests from outside Japan in 2025, Nara comes twentieth from the bottom of Japan's 47 prefectures. Source page |
| Cherry blossom | Somei-yoshino cherry trees usually start to bloom around 26 March and reach full bloom around 4 April. Maple leaves usually turn red around 5 December. These are 1991–2020 averages. Source page | Somei-yoshino cherry trees usually start to bloom around 28 March and reach full bloom around 4 April. Maple leaves usually turn red around 21 November. These are 1991–2020 averages. Source page |
| Typhoons | Over 1991–2020, an average of 3.4 typhoons a year came within 300 km of a JMA weather station in the Kinki region. Source page | Over 1991–2020, an average of 3.4 typhoons a year came within 300 km of a JMA weather station in the Kinki region. Source page |
Each sentence is copied from the page it links to, where its source is cited.
Weather: Kyoto and Nara
Averages for 1991–2020 at the weather station each page uses: Kyoto (京都) for Kyoto and Nara (奈良) for Nara.2
| Month | High, Kyoto | High, Nara | Rain, Kyoto | Rain, Nara |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 9.1 °C | 8.7 °C | 53 mm | 52 mm |
| February | 10.0 °C | 9.9 °C | 65 mm | 63 mm |
| March | 14.1 °C | 13.9 °C | 106 mm | 105 mm |
| April | 20.1 °C | 19.8 °C | 117 mm | 99 mm |
| May | 25.1 °C | 24.9 °C | 151 mm | 138 mm |
| June | 28.1 °C | 28.1 °C | 200 mm | 184 mm |
| July | 32.0 °C | 31.7 °C | 224 mm | 174 mm |
| August | 33.7 °C | 33.4 °C | 154 mm | 128 mm |
| September | 29.2 °C | 28.8 °C | 178 mm | 159 mm |
| October | 23.4 °C | 22.6 °C | 143 mm | 135 mm |
| November | 17.3 °C | 17.1 °C | 74 mm | 71 mm |
| December | 11.6 °C | 11.6 °C | 57 mm | 57 mm |
One station per place; weather varies within every country. Not a forecast.
What this comparison cannot tell you
- A share of each place's own year, not a crowd count. A low share means that month was quiet for that place. It does not mean the place had fewer visitors than somewhere else, and a small country's busy month can still be far quieter than a big country's quiet one.
- Nights, not queues. A national or prefecture total cannot show crowding at one sight, beach or old town. Day trips do not count at all, because nobody stays the night.
- One year. These are 2025 figures. Another year can differ, for example when Easter moves between March and April.
- Japan's figures are a sample survey. The gaps between neighbouring prefectures are often smaller than the survey's sampling error, so we do not rank prefectures against each other.
- We have not been to these places and make no judgement about which is better to visit.
Want a different pair? Open these two in Compare and add or swap places.
Key takeaways
- Busiest in 2025: Kyoto in May, Nara in May.
- Quietest: Kyoto in February, Nara in January.
- Two busiest months: 19.0% of Kyoto's year, 20.1% of Nara's.
- What we would skip: picking one over the other on these figures alone. They show when each is busy, not which you would enjoy more.
Sources
The guest-night figures come from the Japan Tourism Agency and the weather from the Japan Meteorological Agency. We copied every figure from the two places' own pages, where each source is cited in full. See how we research.
- Source: 「宿泊旅行統計調査」（観光庁） (Overnight Travel Statistics Survey, Japan Tourism Agency), 2025 annual figures (final), tables 2 and 8 and reference table 1, published 6 July 2026. Survey page · workbook. Accessed 17 September 2026. Licensed under the Public Data License 1.0 (PDL1.0).
- Weather in Japan: 出典：気象庁ホームページ（過去の気象データ検索）. Japan Meteorological Agency, 1991–2020 normals for the station named for each prefecture (the same station its prefecture page uses, where the page links the station's own table): daily maximum and minimum temperature, precipitation and days with at least 1.0 mm of precipitation (降水量の階級日数). Accessed 22 September 2026. Licensed under PDL1.0. 気象庁「平年値」を加工して作成 — edited by Gallivanting Gadabout (English wording, selection and rounding).
Modified data. The monthly shares, orderings and comparisons are our own calculations from Eurostat's counts and the Japan Tourism Agency's figures (「宿泊旅行統計調査」（観光庁）を加工して作成). Percentages are rounded to one decimal place. Neither body is responsible for these calculations or for how the figures are presented here.