Sunrise and Sunset Calculator: Sunrise and Sunset Times, Golden Hour and Day Length

What This Sunrise Sunset Calculator Does

The sun does not rise and set at the same time everywhere. It depends on how far north or south you are, how far east or west you are in your time zone, the day of the year and the clock rules of the country. This calculator takes all of that into account. Choose a place and a date and it gives the sunrise and sunset times, the length of the day, the time of solar noon, the golden hour and blue hour for photography, and the start and end of each twilight. It also draws the direction of sunrise and sunset on the map, which makes it a sunrise sunset map as well as a calculator.

Sunrise Time Today, Sunset Time Today, or Any Other Date

The tool opens on today, in the local time of the place you choose, so the first answer you see is the sunrise time today and the sunset time today. If you want to know what time is sunset today where a friend lives, search their town. To plan ahead, pick any date in the date box or step through the days with the arrows. The month table and the year chart show every day at once.

Free, Private and Without Sign-Up

There is no account and no payment. All the sun calculations run in your own browser. Only the place is sent, to find its time zone and, when you search, its coordinates. A share link holds the coordinates, the name, the date and the time zone, nothing else.

When Is Golden Hour? A Golden Hour Calculator

Golden hour is the time when the sun is low in the sky: soon after sunrise and shortly before sunset. The light travels through more air, so it is softer and warmer, and shadows are long. Photographers love it for portraits and landscapes. There is no official definition; this golden hour calculator uses the common one, the sun between 6 degrees above and 4 degrees below the horizon. So golden hour today starts a little before sunrise and ends about an hour after it, and in the evening it starts about an hour before sunset and ends a little after it.

Blue Hour: the Blue Hour Calculator

Blue hour comes just before the morning golden hour and just after the evening one, when the sun is between 4 and 6 degrees below the horizon. The sky has a deep blue colour, and in cities the street and building lights are on but the sky is not yet black. The tool gives both the morning and the evening blue hour; they usually last 15 to 25 minutes, and longer far from the equator.

Civil, Nautical and Astronomical Twilight

Twilight is the time when the sun is below the horizon but still lights the sky. It is split into three stages by the sun angle:

Example: the Sun in London on 21 June 2026

On the longest day of the year in London, the sun rises at 04:43 and sets at 21:21, a day of 16 h 38 min. At noon it is 61.9 degrees high, and at night it never goes below the astronomical twilight band, so London has no fully dark night in midsummer. The chart below is the same one the tool draws:

Choosing the Place and the Date

Search a town, an address or a postcode, type coordinates such as 51.5074, -0.1278, press My location, or click the map. The tool finds the time zone of the place and opens on today’s date there. Change the date with the date box, the arrows or Today. Switch between a 24 h and a 12 h clock at the top. Drag the sun pin to fine-tune the place.

Reading the Results

The yellow box gives the sunrise and sunset time, the day length and the change since the day before. The eight cards add the direction of sunrise and sunset, the solar noon and how high the sun gets, the morning and evening golden hour, the evening blue hour and civil twilight. When an event falls after midnight, as with summer sunsets in Iceland, it is marked “next day”. Far north or south the tool says when the sun does not set (midnight sun) or does not rise (polar night).

The Map: Sunrise and Sunset Directions

The orange line points to sunrise and the red line to sunset, with the compass bearing in degrees. On today’s date a dashed yellow line shows where the sun is now. Switch to Satellite to see which buildings, trees or hills lie in those directions. Click the sun pin for a popup with the main times and a Share on WhatsApp button.

Charts, Tables and the CSV Download

The day chart follows the height of the sun from midnight to midnight. The events table gives each moment from astronomical dawn to astronomical dusk with its sun angle. The year chart shows daylight and twilight for every day of the year, with the longest and shortest day, the earliest sunrise and the latest sunset. The month table lists every day of the chosen month, and Download as CSV saves it for Excel or Google Sheets.

1. The Sun Position: Declination and the Equation of Time

The calculator follows the NOAA solar calculator, which is based on Jean Meeus’ Astronomical Algorithms. From the date and time it works out the sun’s declination (how far north or south of the equator the sun is overhead, between about +23.44 and -23.44 degrees) and the equation of time (how far the real sun runs ahead of or behind an even clock, up to about 16 minutes):

2. Sunrise and Sunset: the Hour Angle

Solar noon is the moment the sun is highest. The sun rises and sets a certain number of degrees of turning (the hour angle H) before and after it. The Earth turns 1 degree every 4 minutes:

Each event is worked out again with the sun’s position at that moment, twice, which keeps the result within about a minute of the official tables. If cos H is greater than 1 the sun never reaches that height that day (polar night); if it is less than -1 the sun never goes below it (midnight sun).

3. Why -0.833 Degrees? Refraction and the Size of the Sun

Sunrise and sunset are counted when the top of the sun touches the horizon, and the sun is about 0.53 degrees wide, so its centre is 0.267 degrees lower. The air also bends the light near the horizon by about 0.567 degrees, so we see the sun before it is really there. Together that makes 0.833 degrees, which adds a few minutes to every day.

4. The Direction of Sunrise and Sunset

The direction (azimuth) is measured clockwise from north: 90 degrees is east, 270 degrees is west. The tool works it out from the sun’s position at the moment of sunrise and sunset and draws it on the map. The further you are from the equator, the more these directions swing between summer and winter.

5. Time Zones and Daylight Saving Time

The sun times are worked out in Universal Time (UTC) and then shown in the local time of the place. The time zone comes from the TimeZoneDB service, and your browser’s time zone database applies the right offset for that date, including summer time. If the time zone service does not answer, the tool uses a time zone estimated from the longitude and says so.

6. How Accurate Are the Times?

For places between the polar circles the times are usually within one minute of the NOAA and US Naval Observatory tables. They are for sea level and a flat horizon. Real conditions can change what you see by a few minutes: hills and buildings, your height, and unusual air temperatures that bend the light more or less than average. Close to the poles, where the sun moves almost along the horizon, small changes make a bigger difference.

Day Length at the Equinox and the Solstices, 2026

The day length depends mostly on the latitude. At the equator it stays close to 12 hours all year. Further from the equator the summer days get longer and the winter days shorter, until north of the Arctic Circle the sun stays up or down for whole days. The table uses the same formulas as the tool, for the northern half of the world; south of the equator the summer and winter columns swap.

Midnight Sun and Polar Night in Tromsø

Tromsø in Norway lies at 69.6 degrees north. In 2026 the sun does not set there on 69 days in summer and does not rise on 48 days in winter. The year chart shows it: in summer the daylight band fills the whole height, and in winter only a short blue band of twilight is left around noon. Reykjavik, further south at 64.1 degrees, still has a sunset in June, at 00:04 (next day), but the sky stays in civil twilight all night.

1. Photography: planning golden hour and blue hour

Landscape, portrait and wedding photographers plan around the light. Check when golden hour starts on the day of the shoot, and use the sunset line on the map to see where the sun will go down behind a building, a hill or the sea.

2. Weddings and outdoor events

An outdoor ceremony, a garden party or a sports match looks and feels different after sunset. Choose the venue and the date to see how much daylight is left at each part of the day, and when the evening light is at its best for pictures.

3. Hiking, climbing and outdoor safety

Mountain rescue teams often help walkers caught out by darkness. Check the sunset and the end of civil twilight before you set out, and plan to be off the hill with time to spare, mainly in autumn and winter when the days are short.

4. Drone and light aircraft flying

Many aviation and drone rules refer to sunrise, sunset or civil twilight, for example for flights that need lights. The calculator gives these times for the exact flying site. Always check the rules that apply in your country.

5. Fishing and hunting

Fish often feed most at dawn and dusk, and hunting hours in many places are set from sunrise and sunset. Look up the times for the place and day you plan to go, and check the local rules for the exact legal hours.

6. Fasting and religious times

Several faiths set times by the sun, such as the end of a fast at sunset. The tool gives the sunset time for any place and date. Prayer timetables for dawn often use their own sun angles, so follow your local community calendar for those.

7. Buying a home and planning a garden

The sunrise and sunset lines show which side of a house gets the morning or the evening sun, in summer and in winter. Gardeners use the day length to plan sowing and to choose the right plants for a sunny or shady spot.

8. Travel: midnight sun, northern lights and city breaks

Planning a trip to Iceland, Norway or Canada? See how many hours of daylight you will have, whether the sun sets at all, and when it is dark enough for the northern lights. For a city break, see how much daylight is left after your flight lands.

9. Astronomy and stargazing

Faint stars, galaxies and the Milky Way need a fully dark sky. The end of astronomical twilight tells you when real darkness starts, and in summer far from the equator the tool shows when it never gets fully dark at all.

10. Work, school and well-being

Outdoor workers, farmers and schools plan their days around daylight, and many people feel the short days of winter. The year chart shows how fast the days get shorter in autumn and longer in spring, and the shortest and longest day of the year.

How to Read These Tables

The tables give the sunrise and sunset times and the day length in 200 cities in the USA (50), the UK (30), Canada (20), Australia (20) and Europe (80), on the longest day (21 June) and the shortest day (21 December) of 2026 in the northern half of the world; in Australia it is the other way round. Times are local clock times, with summer time where it applies. Press View on map and the page moves up to the calculator with that city loaded for today, its popup open, and the directions of sunrise and sunset drawn on the map.

In New York City the shortest day has a sunrise at 07:16 and a sunset at 16:31; in London the same day lasts only 7 h 50 min, and in Sydney, in midsummer, 14 h 25 min.

Sunrise and Sunset in 50 US Cities

Sunrise and Sunset in 30 UK Cities

Sunrise and Sunset in 20 Canadian Cities

Sunrise and Sunset in 20 Australian Cities

Sunrise and Sunset in 80 European Cities

Sun Formulas: NOAA and Jean Meeus

The sun’s position comes from the formulas published by the NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory for its solar calculator, which are based on Astronomical Algorithms by Jean Meeus. They are written in Maplity’s own code and run in your browser, so no sun data service is needed.

Time Zones: TimeZoneDB and the IANA Database

The time zone of a place comes from TimeZoneDB, which answers with a zone name such as Europe/London. The local clock time for any date, including daylight saving time, comes from the IANA time zone database built into your browser. The 200 city tables use the same zone names.

Place Search and Maps

Place search uses Photon by Komoot and Nominatim, two search services for OpenStreetMap data, through Maplity’s own server, which takes turns between them and limits how fast it asks. The street map is Maplity’s own vector basemap built from OpenStreetMap data with Protomaps tiles, with CARTO and OpenStreetMap maps as fallbacks; the satellite map is Esri World Imagery. The map uses Leaflet 1.9, the charts are plain SVG drawn by Maplity’s own code, and the page runs on Next.js and React.

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