Today’s sun, at a glance
The two large times are sunrise and sunset in the city shown at the top, in that city’s local time. The curve above them is the sun’s height through the day, from midnight to midnight: the straight line is the horizon, the filled part is daylight, and the dot is the sun right now. Below, you get the day length and how much it changed since yesterday, the time of solar noon with the sun’s height at that moment, and the evening golden hour.
The Twilight view replaces sunrise and sunset with dawn and dusk, the moments when the sky starts to brighten or finishes darkening. Tap the date to check any day, past or future, and tap the city to change it. My location uses your device’s position, which is handy outside big cities or in the countryside.
What counts as sunrise and sunset
Sunrise is the moment the top edge of the sun appears above a flat horizon, and sunset the moment it disappears. Because the atmosphere bends light, you still see the sun when it is in fact just below the horizon. Almanacs, including ours, count this bending (about 34 arcminutes) and the sun’s radius (about 16 arcminutes): the sun’s center is 0.83° below the horizon at sunrise. The times are for sea level and an open horizon. Hills, buildings or a high viewpoint shift them a little.
Twilight: civil, nautical and astronomical
After sunset the sky does not go dark at once. Astronomers split twilight into three stages, by how far the sun is below the horizon.
| Stage | Sun below the horizon | What you see |
|---|---|---|
| Civil twilight | 0° to 6° | Enough light to be outdoors without lamps; the brightest planets appear. |
| Nautical twilight | 6° to 12° | The horizon at sea fades; sailors could still take star sights against it. |
| Astronomical twilight | 12° to 18° | The sky looks dark to most people, but faint galaxies are still washed out. |
| Night | more than 18° | Fully dark sky. |
In summer at high latitudes, the sun may never get 18° below the horizon. In Paris, that happens on 19 nights in June 2026; in London, 60 nights from late May to late July. At 64° north in Reykjavik, the sun does not even reach 6° below between May 19 and July 23: these are the white nights.
Golden hour and blue hour
Photographers love the golden hour: the sun is low, the light is warm and the shadows are long. We use the usual definition, the time when the sun is between 6° above and 4° below the horizon. It is followed by the blue hour, when the sun is between 4° and 6° below the horizon and the sky turns deep blue. Near the equator they are short, because the sun sets steeply: in Singapore the golden hour lasts about 40 minutes and the blue hour less than 10. In Paris, the golden hour lasts from about one hour (at the equinoxes) to one hour and twenty minutes (at the solstices), and the blue hour 12 to 17 minutes.
How long is the day, around the world
Day length depends on latitude and season. Here are the longest and shortest days of 2026 in a few cities, from our own calculations:
| City | Latitude | June 21 | December 21 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Singapore | 1° N | 12 h 12 min | 12 h 03 min |
| Sydney | 34° S | 9 h 54 min | 14 h 25 min |
| New York | 41° N | 15 h 06 min | 9 h 15 min |
| Paris | 49° N | 16 h 11 min | 8 h 15 min |
| London | 52° N | 16 h 38 min | 7 h 50 min |
| Reykjavik | 64° N | 21 h 09 min | 4 h 07 min |
North of the Arctic Circle the sun can stay up all day (the midnight sun) or not rise at all (polar night). In Tromsø, Norway, at 69.6° north, our calculation gives midnight sun from May 18 to July 25, 2026 and no sunrise from November 28 to mid January. Local mountains shorten these periods a little.
Why the earliest sunset is not on the shortest day
The shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere is around December 21. Yet the earliest sunset comes about ten days before, and the latest sunrise about ten days after. In Paris, the sun sets earliest on December 11 (4:54 PM) and rises latest on January 1 (8:44 AM). In New York, the earliest sunset is on December 8 (4:28 PM) and the latest sunrise, in standard time, on January 3 (7:20 AM).
The reason is the equation of time. Because Earth’s orbit is an ellipse and its axis is tilted, solar noon does not fall at the same clock time every day. In December it drifts later by about 30 seconds a day, which pushes both sunrise and sunset later. Clock changes add their own jumps: in New York, the latest sunrise on the clock is on October 31, the day before daylight saving time ends.
How we calculate
All times are computed on your device with the algorithm of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), based on Jean Meeus’s Astronomical Algorithms. We compared it with an independent ephemeris over 2,244 sunrises and sunsets in 19 cities, from the equator to the Arctic: the average gap is 2 seconds and the largest 33 seconds. Times are rounded to the nearest minute, in the local time of the place, daylight saving time included.
Each city has its own page with a full table for the year, for example sunrise and sunset in Paris or in New York. For the night sky, see today’s moon phase; to compare clocks, the world clock shows the time in every city, and daylight saving time gives the dates when clocks change.