Sunrise Today

Use the live sunrise calculator at the top of this page to see today's exact sunrise time for your location, along with sunset, solar noon, golden hour, civil dusk, azimuth, and maximum sun altitude. The calculator uses your device location automatically or any city you enter. Times are accurate to the minute for any location worldwide.

Sunrise time changes daily because Earth's axis is tilted 23.5° relative to its orbital plane around the Sun. As Earth orbits, this tilt means different parts of the planet receive sunlight at different angles throughout the year. The rate of change is fastest around the spring and autumn equinoxes — March and September — when sunrise shifts by up to 3–4 minutes per day. Near the summer and winter solstices, sunrise barely moves at all, which is the origin of the word solstice — "sun stands still."

Your latitude also affects how dramatically sunrise shifts. At the equator, sunrise is nearly constant year-round. At high latitudes like Scandinavia or Canada, the difference between the shortest and longest day can exceed 12 hours.

Golden hour is the period shortly after sunrise and before sunset when the Sun is low on the horizon. At this angle, sunlight travels through a much thicker slice of atmosphere, scattering the shorter blue wavelengths and leaving the longer red, orange, and gold wavelengths to dominate. The result is warm, diffused, directional light that photographers, filmmakers, and artists prize above all other natural lighting conditions.

Golden hour typically lasts 20–40 minutes depending on your latitude and the season. At high latitudes near the solstices, it can extend for over an hour. Near the equator it passes quickly. The calculator on this page shows the exact golden hour end time for your location each day.

Civil twilight begins in the morning when the Sun is 6° below the horizon and ends at sunrise. In the evening, it begins at sunset and ends when the Sun drops 6° below the horizon. During civil twilight, there is still enough natural light to carry out most outdoor activities without artificial lighting — the sky is bright, and the horizon is clearly visible.

Beyond civil twilight are nautical twilight (Sun 6°–12° below horizon, used for sea navigation) and astronomical twilight (Sun 12°–18° below horizon, the threshold at which the sky is dark enough for serious stargazing). Civil dusk — shown in the calculator — marks the practical end of usable natural daylight each evening.

Solar noon is the moment when the Sun reaches its highest point in the sky for the day — directly south of you in the Northern Hemisphere, or directly north in the Southern Hemisphere. It is the midpoint between sunrise and sunset, but it rarely falls at 12:00 PM on a clock. The difference between clock noon and solar noon can be up to 16 minutes depending on the time of year and your position within your time zone.

Solar noon matters for photography (overhead light creates harsh shadows — most photographers avoid it), solar panel efficiency (panels generate maximum power near solar noon), and shadow navigation. The calculator shows the exact solar noon for your location each day, along with the maximum altitude the Sun reaches at that moment.

The Sun does not always rise due east — its exact position on the horizon shifts throughout the year. On the spring and autumn equinoxes, the Sun rises almost exactly due east (azimuth ~90°) and sets almost exactly due west. After the spring equinox, the sunrise point moves progressively north until the summer solstice, when it reaches its northernmost point — northeast in the Northern Hemisphere. After the solstice it reverses, moving south until the winter solstice when it rises at its most southerly point — southeast.

This seasonal arc is what makes certain landscape and architectural alignments — like Stonehenge at midsummer solstice, or canyon light shafts in Arizona — possible to plan precisely. The azimuth rise value in the calculator shows exactly where the Sun will appear on your horizon each morning.

Yes — significantly. Time zones can span up to 1,000 km east to west, meaning the eastern edge of a time zone can have sunrise nearly an hour earlier than the western edge, even though clocks show the same time. China, which uses a single time zone across the entire country, is the extreme example — sunrise in Shanghai can be over 3 hours earlier than in Kashgar on the same clock time.

Latitude also matters enormously. At high latitudes near the Arctic Circle, summer sunrise can occur before 3 AM and winter sunrise after 10 AM. Near the equator, sunrise stays close to 6 AM year-round with minimal variation. The calculator on this page accounts for both your longitude and latitude to give exact local times.

Sunrise is defined as the moment when the upper limb of the Sun — its top edge — first appears above the geometric horizon, accounting for atmospheric refraction. Atmospheric refraction bends sunlight by approximately 0.57° as it passes through the atmosphere, which means the Sun is actually still slightly below the geometric horizon when we first see it. This adds roughly 2–3 minutes of visible light at both sunrise and sunset compared to a theoretical calculation without atmosphere.

This site uses the SunCalc astronomical library based on the algorithms of Jean Meeus, the accepted standard for precision solar calculations. Results are accurate to within one minute for any location and date between the years 1900 and 2100.

The summer solstice — around June 20–21 in the Northern Hemisphere — is the longest day of the year, with the most hours between sunrise and sunset. The winter solstice — around December 21–22 — is the shortest. In the Southern Hemisphere the dates are reversed: December brings the longest day and June the shortest.

How extreme the difference is depends entirely on latitude. At the equator, every day is almost exactly 12 hours. At 51°N (London), the longest day has about 16.5 hours of daylight and the shortest about 7.5 hours. At the Arctic Circle (66.5°N), the summer solstice brings 24 hours of daylight and the winter solstice brings none at all. Use the Prev and Next buttons above the calculator to browse day length through the year for your location.

All solar calculations use the SunCalc open-source astronomical library based on the methods of Jean Meeus, whose Astronomical Algorithms is the definitive reference in the field. The same library powers NASA-adjacent tools and professional astronomy software worldwide. Results are accurate to within one minute for sunrise, sunset, solar noon, golden hour, civil twilight, azimuth, and maximum altitude — for any location on Earth and any date from 1900 to 2100.