Sunrise and sunset in the United Kingdom

Average length of day in London

The following graph shows the times of sunrise and sunset over the course of the year. The duration of twilight can be seen at the top and bottom edges. The vertical offset between April and October shows the effect of daylight saving time, when the time is set one hour ahead.
      sunshine duration       twilight phase

Sunrise and sunset in the most important cities of the United Kingdom

The cities are ordered by their geographic position from east to west, so in an approximate direction of the sun's course. Since the orbit around the sun is elliptical, sunrise or sunset never happen on a whole longitude at the same time. All data given for April 28th., localtime in the United Kingdom

Times of twilight

The length of twilight is mainly influenced by latitude and the time of year. The further away you are from the poles, the longer it takes for the sun to disappear behind the horizon - or to rise in the morning. The seasons also influence the length of twilight, as the tilt of the earth's axis relative to the sun changes. In the summer months, the Earth's axis tilts more towards the sun in each hemisphere, which leads to longer twilight phases. In the winter months, on the other hand, the earth's axis tilts away from the sun. This in turn leads to shorter twilight phases.

London is located at 52 degrees north latitude, which is quite far from the equator. While the sun only takes around 20 minutes to set near the equator, this time span averages 50 minutes in the south of the UK. In June it is around 60 minutes in London, while in December it is 41 minutes.

Height of the position of the sun

The location in the northern hemisphere has another effect: the sun shines south all year round. This is almost taken for granted by Europeans and North Americans, but is only the case north of the Tropic of Cancer. South of the Tropic of Cancer, the sun always shines from the north and even changes position between the two tropics. However, the sun is never vertical over the United Kingdom. In December, it is so far away that even at midday it can only be seen 15 degrees above the horizon. Zero degrees would be the height of the horizon and 90 degrees would mean a position vertically above the observer. It reaches its highest point in the course of the entire year at midday on June 21. Then the sun shines down at an angle of 61.9 degrees.

Sunrise and sunset by month for London

Where does the sun rise in the United Kingdom?

The sun always rises in the east, everywhere and regardless of the country or continent. The easternmost city in the United Kingdom is Lowestoft in the region of England. There, the sun rises at 5:24 am and sets at 8:16 pm these days. The latest sunset is currently experienced in the west in the city of Enniskillen (Northern Ireland) at 21:00.

Actual hours of sunshine

The period from sunrise to sunset is the astronomical length of the day. It is therefore independent of whether you can actually see the sun. In addition, significant deviations can be perceived depending on cloud cover or other visual obstructions. For the London resp. England region, we have shown the approximate sunshine duration in the graph here.

In June, the sun shines for around 6:24 hours a day. In contrast, the day is 16:41 hours long. This means that the visual obstruction is around 10:17 hours per day. In December, on the other hand, it is 6:14 of 7:56 hours.

International cities for comparison