Bangkok or Cape Town: which climate?
Bangkok (Thailand) has a tropical savanna climate, whereas Cape Town (South Africa) has a warm-summer mediterranean climate, according to the Köppen-Geiger classification.
The values compared here are normals computed over 86 complete calendar years, from 1940 to 2025, using ERA5 reanalysis data from the Copernicus programme. The same method and the same period apply to Bangkok and to Cape Town.
Bangkok is warmer than Cape Town by 11.9 °C in annual average: 28.2 °C against 16.3 °C.
Bangkok gets more rain than Cape Town: 1,229 mm per year against 539 mm.
Cape Town gets 10.9 hours of sunshine per day on average, against 10.0 hours in Bangkok.
Bangkok has warmed by +2.1 °C between 1940 and 2025, against +0.8 °C in Cape Town. Bangkok is therefore warming faster than Cape Town. Both trends are statistically significant.
Bangkok averages 325 hot days (≥ 30 °C) and 0 frost days per year; Cape Town averages 0 and 0.
Data from ERA5 reanalysis (Copernicus Climate Change Service), redistributed under a CC-BY 4.0 licence. Normals are recomputed whenever the archive is updated.
| Indicator | Bangkok | Cape Town | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mean daily temperature | 28.2 °C | 16.3 °C | -11.9 °C |
| Average daily high | 32.5 °C | 18.7 °C | -13.8 °C |
| Average daily low | 24.9 °C | 14.4 °C | -10.5 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 1,229 mm | 539 mm | -690 mm |
| Sunshine / day | 10.0 h | 10.9 h | +0.9 h |
| Hot days (≥ 30 °C) | 325 d/yr | 0 d/yr | -325 d/yr |
| Frost days (< 0 °C) | 0 d/yr | 0 d/yr | negligible |
| Rainy days (≥ 1 mm) | 175 d/yr | 77 d/yr | -98 d/yr |
| Mean relative humidity | 74 % | 78 % | +4 % |
| Average peak wind | 14.0 km/h | 26.3 km/h | +12.3 km/h |
A difference is only reported when it exceeds the resolution of the data. ERA5 is a reanalysis on a grid of about 31 km: two nearby cities often fall in the same cell, and below half a degree you are reading the grid, not the climate.