Today's Sun Extremes Across the United States
Where does the sun set latest in America tonight? Rise earliest? Which city gets the most daylight today — and which gets the least? These rankings are recalculated from the coordinates of more than 15,000 US places each time you load the page.
Live rankings are calculated in your browser so this permanently static page never serves an old date.
Live rankings are calculated in your browser so this permanently static page never serves an old date.
Why the Same Country Has Hours of Difference
Three forces separate the top and bottom of these tables. Latitude sets day length: in summer, the farther north you are, the longer the sun stays up, all the way to the midnight sun above the Arctic Circle; in winter the advantage flips to the south. Position within a time zone sets the clock time: the sun crosses America from east to west, but each time zone shares one clock, so cities on a zone's western edge see sunrise and sunset up to an hour "later" than cities on its eastern edge. And daylight saving time shifts every clock time in most states by an hour from March to November.
That's why the same names keep appearing: in summer, western Alaska monopolizes the latest sunsets; the western edges of the Eastern and Central zones (Michigan's west side, the North Dakota–Montana line) dominate the lower-48 rankings; and eastern Maine — the first place in the country to see the sun — owns the earliest sunrises.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where does the sun set latest in the United States?
In summer, the latest sunsets in the country are in western Alaska, where high latitude and a position far west within the Alaska time zone push sunset past midnight in places like Nome and Kotzebue. In the lower 48, the latest sunsets belong to cities on the western edge of their time zone — western Michigan and western North Dakota are classic examples — because the whole zone shares one clock while the sun arrives later the farther west you go.
Why do sunset times differ so much between cities in the same time zone?
A US time zone can span more than a thousand miles east to west, but every city in it shares the same clock. The sun sweeps west at roughly 15 degrees of longitude per hour, so a city on the western edge of a zone sees sunrise and sunset up to an hour later on the clock than one on the eastern edge at the same latitude.
Where is the longest day in the US today?
It depends on the season. From the March equinox to the September equinox, day length increases with latitude, so the longest days are in northern Alaska — culminating in the midnight sun, when the sun never sets at all. In the winter half of the year it flips: the longest days are in the southernmost places, like Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and south Florida.
What are the midnight sun and polar night?
North of the Arctic Circle the sun stays above the horizon for at least one full day each summer (the midnight sun) and below it for at least one full day each winter (polar night). Utqiagvik, the northernmost US city, gets about 65 days of continuous midnight sun and about 65 days of polar night each year.
How is this page calculated, and how current is it?
The rankings are computed from the center coordinates and timezone of more than 15,000 non-military US places with population 1,000 or more. Your browser recalculates the full set for the current local date in each place when the page loads, so no daily site rebuild is required.