Sunrise in Madrid is not sunrise in your timezone, and a sunset time quoted in UTC helps nobody plan a photograph, a run or a fast. This free tool fixes both problems: type any place, pick any date, and it shows sunrise, sunset, solar noon, day length and the first and last civil light — all converted into that place’s own local time. The date starts on today, so a single search answers the everyday question: how much daylight do we actually get?
How the sunrise and sunset calculator works
Two services combine here. First, Open-Meteo’s geocoding turns the name you typed into coordinates and — crucially — the place’s timezone, offering up to five matches when a name repeats around the world. Those coordinates and your chosen date then go to sunrise-sunset.org, which calculates the sun’s path for that exact spot using standard astronomical formulas and returns every time in UTC. The page converts each UTC instant into local time with the place’s timezone, so the sunrise you read is the sunrise a person standing there would see on their own clock — daylight saving included.
How to use it
Type a city, town or landmark area, leave the date on today or change it to any day that matters — a holiday, a wedding, the shortest day of the year — and press Get sun times. If several places match, the first loads automatically and the others sit as buttons above the results; tap a different one to swap. The six cards read in the order the light happens: first light, sunrise, solar noon, sunset, last light, and the total day length between sunrise and sunset. To compare seasons, run the same place on a June and a December date and watch day length swing.
First light, last light and why photographers care
Sunrise is the moment the sun’s top edge clears the horizon, but useful light starts earlier. Civil twilight — the period this page labels first light and last light — is when the sun sits just below the horizon yet there is still enough light to work, walk and shoot outdoors without artificial light. Photographers plan around it twice over: the soft light just before sunrise and just after sunset, and the blue hour that follows. Anglers, runners and early-shift workers use the same numbers for a simpler reason: first light is when the world becomes visible, often twenty to forty minutes before sunrise itself.
Day length through the year
Day length is the gap between sunrise and sunset, and it is never still. Near the equator it barely moves all year; at mid-latitudes it stretches and shrinks by hours between solstices; inside the polar circles it hits the extremes of midnight sun and polar night, where the calculator will honestly show a day with no sunrise or no sunset at all. Solar noon is the midpoint of that arc — the sun’s highest point — and it rarely falls at 12:00 on the clock, because timezones are wide, borders bend them, and the Earth’s orbit makes solar time drift against clock time across the year.
Planning with sun times
A date picker turns trivia into a plan. Hikers use sunset minus their descent time to set a turnaround hour; gardeners check how many hours of sun a plot truly gets in November, not just in June; travellers crossing timezones use the destination’s sunrise to anchor sleep on arrival day. When you plan, remember the figures assume a flat, clear horizon: a valley floor, a city of towers or a ridge to the east can delay visible sunrise by many minutes, and hills to the west steal the evening just as surely.
Sunrise Sunset Times – frequently asked questions
Are the times shown in my timezone or the place’s?
In the place’s own local time, converted from UTC using its timezone — including daylight saving on the date you chose. The timezone name is printed on the results card.
Can I check a past or future date?
Yes. The date field accepts any date. The underlying solar calculations work the same for a date last year or ten years ahead, which makes comparisons between seasons easy.
What are first light and last light?
They mark civil twilight: the start and end of the period when the sun is below the horizon but there is still — or already — enough natural light for ordinary outdoor activity.
Why does a place show no sunrise on some dates?
Inside the polar circles the sun can stay above the horizon all day (midnight sun) or below it all day (polar night) around the solstices. On those dates there genuinely is no sunrise or sunset to show.
Related tools
Versión en español: Hora de amanecer y atardecer — Salida y puesta del sol en cualquier lugar. You may also like: Air Quality Checker — Live AQI & Pollution Levels for Any City · University Finder — Search Universities by Country or Name.
Working from GPS coordinates instead of a place name? Use the Sunrise and Sunset Calculator by Coordinates — enter a latitude and longitude from a map pin, GPS unit or trailhead listing and get today’s sunrise and sunset for that exact spot.
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