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World Sunshine Map — Calibrated Sunshine Hours for 270+ Cities
An interactive world sunshine map showing calibrated annual sunshine hours for 270+ cities across 190 countries. Algarve tops Europe at 3,141 hr/yr; Phoenix leads the US at 3,872. Every number is corrected against 56 WMO reference stations using the same ERA5 reanalysis meteorologists use worldwide.
How GeoRank's sunshine data is calibrated
Most sunshine maps online quietly hand you raw ERA5 reanalysis values or scrape a patchwork of station records from Wikipedia. Raw ERA5 — the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts product hosted by the Copernicus Climate Data Store — typically underestimates ground-truth sunshine by 10–20% because its cloud-cover scheme runs slightly conservative. Wikipedia mixes station years (1971–2000 here, 1991–2020 there) and measurement methods (Campbell-Stokes vs. pyranometer thresholds) and produces incomparable rows. Neither is auditable.
GeoRank publishes one consistent dataset and one consistent correction. We took ERA5 monthly sunshine duration on a 0.5° (~55 km) grid for the 1991–2020 climatology period, sampled 56 globally-distributed WMO reference stations from the World Meteorological Organization, KNMI, and ECA&D networks, and fit a single linear correction. That formula — printed below in mono so you can audit it — is the difference between a marketing number and a citable one.
☀
Sunshine — calibration formula
Calibrated
●●●●
Formulaactual ≈ 1.14 × ERA5 − 1,550
Fit qualityR² = 0.82 · RMSE ≈ 180 hr/yr
Stationsn = 56 (WMO/KNMI/ECA&D)
Source gridERA5 · 0.5° · 1991–2020
Coverage270+ cities · 190 countries
Accuracy±8% most locations
High-altitude sites ±15%. Coastal microclimates (Canary Islands cliff-edge, Madeira) ±20%. The 56-station subset is a globally-distributed cross-validation sample drawn from a 182-station reference set; the remaining 126 serve as holdout.
Full methodology →
Top 10 sunniest cities worldwide (calibrated)
These are the sunniest cities in the GeoRank dataset, ranked by calibrated annual sunshine hours. The US Southwest dominates raw sunshine; southern Europe leads on the cost-adjusted, visa-friendly side of the trade-off. For the full European breakdown — including winter-sun champions like Las Palmas (Canaries) at 204 January hours — see our sunniest cities in Europe ranking.
☀ Top 10 sunniest cities (annual, calibrated)
- 1Phoenix, Arizona (US)3,872 hr/yr
- 2Las Vegas, Nevada (US)3,825 hr/yr
- 3Algarve, Portugal3,141 hr/yr
- 4Larnaca, Cyprus3,030 hr/yr
- 5Almería, Spain3,002 hr/yr
- 6Murcia, Spain2,950 hr/yr
- 7Seville, Spain2,918 hr/yr
- 8Funchal, Madeira (Portugal)2,900 hr/yr
- 9Valencia, Spain2,900 hr/yr
- 10Lisbon, Portugal2,806 hr/yr
Europe vs US — sunshine head-to-head
| City |
Region |
Sunshine hr/yr |
Notes |
| Phoenix | Arizona (US) | 3,872 | Sonoran desert, 33°N |
| Las Vegas | Nevada (US) | 3,825 | Mojave desert, 36°N |
| Algarve | Portugal (EU) | 3,141 | Europe's sunniest region, 37°N |
| Seville | Spain (EU) | 2,918 | Hot dry Andalusia, 37°N |
| Madrid | Spain (EU) | 2,769 | Continental plateau, 40°N |
| Lisbon | Portugal (EU) | 2,806 | Atlantic-tempered, 38°N |
Use the live sunshine map
The interactive GeoRank map renders the calibrated sunshine layer as a global yellow gradient — the darker the swatch, the more annual sun. Pan, zoom, and click any pin to see the annual figure, monthly profile, and the WMO station used for calibration. You can also overlay cost, tax, air quality, safety, and rainfall on the same view, which is the actual relocation question: not just "where's sunny" but "where's sunny and affordable and visa-accessible."
01
Open the sunshine layer
Deep-link straight into the sun layer at
/?layer=sun. The yellow gradient is the calibrated annual-hours field. Click any city pin to inspect.
02
Filter by sunshine range
Use the layer slider to clip to "show me everywhere above 2,800 hr/yr" — instantly narrows to southern Europe, North Africa, the US Southwest, and Australia.
03
Add cost, tax, safety overlays
Sunshine is one of seven calibrated layers. Stack
cost,
safety, and tax on top — the colour-coded chips on every pin tell you the trade-off at a glance.
04
Pin your home as baseline
Set "home" once and every other pin shows deltas vs your current city — sunshine, cost, tax, all sourced and calibrated.
Open Compare →
Download the calibrated dataset
The full calibrated sunshine dataset — annual and monthly hours for 270+ cities across 190 countries, with latitude, longitude, country code, and the WMO station used for each calibration — is downloadable as a single CSV at /data/sunshine-hours.csv. It's licensed CC-BY-4.0: free for commercial and non-commercial use with attribution.
Cities
270+
all major capitals
Countries
190
global coverage
License
CC-BY-4.0
attribution only
Climatology
1991–2020
WMO standard 30-yr
Suggested citation: GeoRank (2026). Calibrated Global Sunshine Hours Dataset. ERA5-based, corrected against 56 WMO/KNMI reference stations. https://georank.place/methodology.html. If you publish derived work, a link back to the methodology satisfies the attribution requirement.
Why GeoRank's sunshine map is different
01
Calibrated, not crowdsourced
Every number is ERA5 reanalysis corrected against 56 official WMO/KNMI reference stations using a published formula (actual ≈ 1.14 × ERA5 − 1,550, R²=0.82). No user submissions, no copy-pasted Wikipedia rows.
02
Transparent uncertainty
We publish accuracy bounds: ±8% for most cities, ±15% at altitude, ±20% on coastal microclimates. Most sunshine sites don't even publish a single error bar.
03
Public, citable dataset
Download all 270+ rows as CSV under CC-BY-4.0 at
/data/sunshine-hours.csv. Cross-reference against NOAA, national met services, or your own analysis.
04
Sunshine in context
Sun alone doesn't pick a city. The same map shows cost, tax, air quality, and safety — and lets you pin your home so every destination is shown as a delta from where you live now.
Related GeoRank tools & rankings
Frequently asked questions
How is this different from Wikipedia or other sunshine databases?
GeoRank publishes its calibration formula. Raw ERA5 satellite data underestimates sunshine by roughly 10–20% versus ground truth. We fit a linear correction (
actual ≈ 1.14 × ERA5 − 1,550, R²=0.82, RMSE≈180 hr/yr) on 56 WMO reference stations, then apply it globally. Wikipedia aggregates a mix of station years and measurement methods; we publish one consistent dataset for 270+ cities, downloadable as
CSV under CC-BY-4.0.
What's the difference between sunshine hours and solar irradiance?
Sunshine hours count how long the sun is above the WMO brightness threshold (120 W/m² direct irradiance) per year — measured in hr/yr on roughly a 0–4,380 scale. Solar irradiance measures total energy density at the surface in W/m² or kWh/m²/day. Phoenix gets 3,872 sunshine hours/yr and averages around 250 W/m². For relocation, sunshine hours is more intuitive; for solar-panel sizing, see our
solar irradiance map.
Why do southern European cities get less sun than Phoenix?
Latitude plus winter cloud cover. Phoenix sits at 33°N in a desert; Algarve sits at 37°N on the Atlantic. Higher latitude means shorter winter days; the Atlantic adds maritime cloud December–February. Algarve still tops Europe at 3,141 hr/yr — but trails Phoenix by ~730 hours. For most relocation cases, Algarve wins on cost, visa access, and English-speaking expat community. See the
European ranking for the full picture.
How accurate are these numbers?
±8% for most locations after calibration. The residual RMSE on the 56-station fit is ≈180 hr/yr, or roughly ±6%. High-altitude sites and coastal microclimates (Canary Islands cliff-edge, Madeira) widen to ±15–20% due to local cloud regimes ERA5 can't fully resolve at 0.5° (~55 km) grid resolution. Full uncertainty bounds are documented in the
methodology.
Can I download the calibrated sunshine dataset?
Yes. All 270+ cities are in
/data/sunshine-hours.csv under a CC-BY-4.0 license — free for commercial and non-commercial use with attribution. The file includes annual hours, monthly hours, latitude/longitude, country, and the source station used for calibration. Cite as: GeoRank (2026),
Calibrated Global Sunshine Hours Dataset, https://georank.place/methodology.html.
Is the data current for 2026?
The dataset uses the 1991–2020 ERA5 climatology — the current WMO-standard 30-year reference period. Year-to-year cloud cover varies by roughly ±10%, so any single recent year may differ from the climatology. We refresh the snapshot annually as new ERA5 monthly fields are released by the Copernicus Climate Data Store.
Find your sunny destination.
The map combines sunshine, cost, tax, and safety on every pin. Set your home as the baseline and see every destination as a delta from where you live now.
About the data: GeoRank calibrates ERA5 reanalysis (Copernicus Climate Data Store, 1991–2020 climatology) against 56 WMO/KNMI/ECA&D reference weather stations to produce the most accurate sunshine-hours dataset for relocation planning. Unlike sunshine sites that publish raw satellite data or scraped, incomparable station years, we publish our correction formula (
actual ≈ 1.14 × ERA5 − 1,550, R²=0.82, RMSE≈180 hr/yr) so you can audit it. National met services (NOAA, KNMI, AEMET, IPMA) serve as independent cross-references. See the
methodology for source-by-source detail.
Sources: ERA5 reanalysis (Copernicus Climate Data Store, EU) · 56 WMO/KNMI/ECA&D reference weather stations · NOAA solar & climate data (cross-reference) · national meteorological services (AEMET Spain, IPMA Portugal, Met Office UK, DWD Germany). Methodology and accuracy bounds at methodology.