Watch one world move through the day
Search a city to find its local time and bring it into view. Save the cities you follow, or move the timeline up to 24 hours in either direction. In time preview, every city clock and the sunlight on Earth use the same selected moment. Choose “Back to now” to return to live time.
The slow rotation changes your view of Earth; it does not speed up the clocks. Drag the globe or use its arrow keys to explore, and use the zoom controls for a closer look. Rotation pauses briefly after you interact. You can pause it completely, and it starts paused if your device requests reduced motion.
Daylight, civil twilight and nighttime describe the Sun’s position above or below the horizon. A city’s local clock also depends on its legal time zone, so longitude alone cannot tell you the time. One country can have several time zones.
Where the times and sunlight come from
The directory contains 2,121 locations classified by GeoNames as capitals, or cities with a reported population of at least 300,000. Smaller towns may not appear. Names, coordinates and IANA time-zone identifiers come from GeoNames, under CC BY 4.0. Population and classifications follow that dataset and may differ from current official estimates.
Local dates, UTC offsets and named daylight-saving rules use your browser’s time-zone database and device clock. Sunlight uses NOAA’s approximate solar-position equations, including the seasonal solar declination and equation of time. The shaded edge is softened for readability.
This is an educational overview, without terrain, weather or atmospheric-refraction corrections. It is not a precise sunrise forecast or navigation tool. To explore relative country areas, visit the Equal Earth map or our country size comparison tool.