Annual sunshine hours
Places in the world with the most daylight hours
- Yuma (USA) According to the World Meteorological Organization, Yuma (Arizona) is the sunniest place on earth. …
- Phoenix (USA) You don’t have to go too far to find the second sunniest place on earth. …
- Aswan (Egypt)
Dongola in Sudan has 3,814 hours of sunshine per year
Dongola enjoys 3,813.8 hours of sunlight per year or 87 percent of the total available. The month of June has the most sunshine, while September has the least.
sunshine duration, astronomical. Description: Sum of the time intervals within a given time period during which the sun is above an even, unobscured horizon. This is equivalent to the period during which the solar elevation is greater than 0.
In tropical areas, the shortest day is just a little shorter than 12 hours; in the temperate zone, it is significantly shorter; and places within the Arctic Circle experience polar night, when the Sun does not rise at all.
Norway is known as the land of midnight sun. Due to Norway’s high altitude, there are seasonal variations in daylight because of the period of refracted sunlight is long. In this country, for about a period of 76 days from late May to late July, the sun never sets for about 20 hours.
Norway. Norway, situated in the Arctic Circle, is called the Land of the Midnight Sun, where from May to late July, the sun actually never sets. This means that for around a period of 76 days, the sun never goes down.
Kindly share this story: European countries, Finland and Sweden, are part of the six countries where the sun never sets for a particular period of time. These countries experiences sunshine for months and some also experience darkness for some consecutive days.
In Svalbard, Norway, the northernmost inhabited region of Europe, there is no sunset from approximately 19 April to 23 August. The extreme sites are the poles, where the Sun can be continuously visible for half the year. The North Pole has midnight sun for 6 months from late March to late September.
Greenland, Denmark. Greenland is a huge island and is a territory of Denmark. In the city of Qaanaaq, the sun does not rise from October 29 to February 14. Greenland is considered to be the largest island in the world and most of the land mass is covered by an icecap (80%).
The Sun is about 150 million km away, so we see it as it was about 8 minutes ago. Even our nearest planetary neighbours, Venus and Mars, are tens of millions of kilometres away, so we see them as they were minutes ago. The Earth is 8.3 light minutes from the Sun.
Although the daytime length at the Equator remains 12 hours in all seasons, the duration at all other latitudes varies with the seasons. During the winter, daytime lasts shorter than 12 hours; during the summer, it lasts longer than 12 hours.
Ranked: Cities with the Least and Most Sunshine Hours
While the graphic groups the top five cities from each continent, the tables below highlight the top 10 cities from around the world that boast the highest and lowest annual sunshine hours.
Top 10 Cities with the Most Annual Sunshine
| City | Country | Climate | # of Sunshine Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yuma | United States | Arid | 4,015.3 |
| Marsa Alam | Egypt | Arid | 3,958.0 |
| Dakhla Oasis | Egypt | Arid | 3,943.4 |
| Calama | Chile | Arid, Marine West Coast, Tundra | 3,926.2 |
| Phoenix | United States | Arid | 3,871.6 |
| Keetmanshoop | Namibia | Arid | 3,870.0 |
| Las Vegas | United States | Arid | 3,825.3 |
| Tucson | United States | Arid | 3,806.0 |
| Kharga | Egypt | Arid | 3,790.8 |
| El Paso | United States | Semiarid | 3,762.5 |
The sunniest city on Earth is Yuma, Arizona in the U.S. As the driest city in the U.S., Yuma receives less than 200 millimeters (8 inches) of rainfall and endures roughly 100 days of 40°C (104°F) weather every year. Yuma lies between the Gila and Colorado rivers, in a lush region that produces almost 90% of leafy vegetables grown in the U.S.
Arizona boasts three of the top 10 sunniest cities in the world, including Phoenix in the fifth spot, which is the 5th most populous city in the U.S. and is known as “the Valley of the Sun”.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Egypt also has three cities in the top 10 list, with Marsa Alam, Dakhla Oasis, and Kharga claiming the 2nd, 3rd, and 9th sunniest spots, respectively. Dakhla Oasis, or “inner oasis”, receives practically zero precipitation each year.
Top 10 Cities with the Least Annual Sunshine
| City | Country | Climate | # of Sunshine Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Totoró | Colombia | Marine West Coast | 637.0 |
| Tórshavn | Faroe Islands | Marine West Coast | 840.0 |
| Chongqing | China | Humid Subtropical | 954.8 |
| Dikson | Russia | Tundra | 1,164.3 |
| Malabo | Equatorial Guinea | Tropical Wet and Dry | 1,176.7 |
| Buenaventura | Colombia | Tropical Wet and Dry, Humid Subtropical | 1,178.0 |
| Lima | Peru | Arid | 1,230.0 |
| Ushuaia | Argentina | Tundra | 1,281.2 |
| Reykjavik | Iceland | Tundra, Marine West Coast | 1,326.0 |
| Bogotá | Colombia | Marine West Coast | 1,328.0 |
Although perceived as a sunny location, Colombia borders both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, exposing it to higher variety in weather patterns and precipitation. Colombia alone is home to three of the top 10 cities with the lowest hours of annual sunshine.
Ranking second-to-last in the number of sunshine hours, Torshavn lies between the Scottish coast and Iceland and receives roughly 37 days of sunshine every year; the average temperatures on this island barely reach above 5°C (41°F).
Our sun doesn’t shine at the same level of brightness all the time. NASA has observed that the sun goes through “solar cycles” that last roughly 11 years─brightening and dimming at relatively regular intervals and impacting how intensely we receive sunlight at any given time.
Sunshine Near the Poles
Humans typically need exposure to the sun to maintain healthy sleep habits, as our brain has been hardwired to follow natural waking and sleeping rhythms.
However, several cities experience no sun at all for several months at a time in what’s known as the “Polar Night”.
- Tromsø, Norway: winter darkness is enjoyed rather than endured, as it can last for over a month
- Svalbard, Norway: even indirect sunlight is absent, with no change in sunlight to help indicate a 24-hour day
- Dikson, Russia: receives no sunlight whatsoever in December
Wherever you live, people have been watching and tracking the movements of the sun with rapt attention for millennia, even when we couldn’t see it.