Cities whose clock runs furthest behind the Sun
In Nome, AK the Sun reaches its highest point at 14:53 local time: 2 hours 53 minutes after the clock strikes twelve. Solar noon there arrives closer to the end of the working day than to the middle of it.
Computed at 25 September 2026 at 14:36 UTC. Computed for today, and today's answer is a summer one. Daylight saving adds a full hour to every observing city's gap, and the equation of time moves solar noon by up to a quarter of an hour across the year.
The twenty worst mismatches today
| # | City | Solar noon | Clock is behind by | Longitude | Time zone |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nome, AK | 14:53 | 2 hours 53 minutes | 165.4°W | America/Nome |
| 2 | Vigo, Spain | 14:27 | 2 hours 27 minutes | 8.7°W | Europe/Madrid |
| 3 | A Coruna, Spain | 14:25 | 2 hours 25 minutes | 8.4°W | Europe/Madrid |
| 4 | Bole, China | 14:23 | 2 hours 23 minutes | 82.1°E | Asia/Shanghai |
| 5 | Ourense, Spain | 14:23 | 2 hours 23 minutes | 7.9°W | Europe/Madrid |
| 6 | Badajoz, Spain | 14:20 | 2 hours 20 minutes | 7.0°W | Europe/Madrid |
| 7 | Huelva, Spain | 14:19 | 2 hours 19 minutes | 6.9°W | Europe/Madrid |
| 8 | Utqiagvik, AK | 14:19 | 2 hours 19 minutes | 156.8°W | America/Anchorage |
| 9 | Cadiz, Spain | 14:17 | 2 hours 17 minutes | 6.3°W | Europe/Madrid |
| 10 | Jerez de la Frontera, Spain | 14:16 | 2 hours 16 minutes | 6.1°W | Europe/Madrid |
| 11 | Seville, Spain | 14:16 | 2 hours 16 minutes | 6.0°W | Europe/Madrid |
| 12 | Dos Hermanas, Spain | 14:15 | 2 hours 15 minutes | 5.9°W | Europe/Madrid |
| 13 | Oviedo, Spain | 14:15 | 2 hours 15 minutes | 5.8°W | Europe/Madrid |
| 14 | Salamanca (Castille and Leon), Spain | 14:14 | 2 hours 14 minutes | 5.7°W | Europe/Madrid |
| 15 | Gijon, Spain | 14:14 | 2 hours 14 minutes | 5.7°W | Europe/Madrid |
| 16 | Leon, Spain | 14:14 | 2 hours 14 minutes | 5.6°W | Europe/Madrid |
| 17 | Algeciras, Spain | 14:13 | 2 hours 13 minutes | 5.5°W | Europe/Madrid |
| 18 | Marbella, Spain | 14:11 | 2 hours 11 minutes | 4.9°W | Europe/Madrid |
| 19 | Cordoba, Spain | 14:11 | 2 hours 11 minutes | 4.8°W | Europe/Madrid |
| 20 | Valladolid, Spain | 14:11 | 2 hours 11 minutes | 4.7°W | Europe/Madrid |
How the gap was measured
For each of the 6,338 cities in the catalogue we solve for the instant the Sun crosses the local meridian, which is solar noon, then ask what that instant reads on the city's own clock, daylight saving included. The gap in the table is that reading minus 12:00. It is a real elapsed time, not a longitude calculation: the number would be identical if you stood in the street with a stick and a watch.
Three separate things feed into it. Longitude within the zone is the biggest: every degree east or west of the zone's central meridian is four minutes. Daylight saving is the next, adding a clean hour wherever it is in force, which is why the top of this table is a summer table. Last is the equation of time, the up to sixteen minute wobble caused by Earth's elliptical orbit and axial tilt, which moves solar noon back and forth across the year at every longitude on the planet.
As always, the ranking is limited to the 6,338 cities we publish, which is settlements above 100,000 people plus 448 smaller originals. Somewhere in the far west of a wide zone there is certainly a village with a worse gap than the top row here. What this page can say is which significant city has the worst of it today.
Why the worst case is in the far west of a zone
Nome, AK sits at 165.4 degrees west, which by pure longitude belongs on a clock about 2 hours 53 minutes behind the one it actually keeps. It is on America/Nome because administrative convenience put it there, and then daylight saving pushed it another hour further from the Sun. The result is a place where the Sun rises mid-morning by the clock and is still high in the sky at what the rest of the world would call mid-afternoon.
The pattern repeats everywhere a zone boundary was drawn for political rather than solar reasons. Whenever a country decides to put a whole region on the capital's clock, the western edge of that region pays, and it pays four minutes for every degree.
Spain, and the famous case
17 Spanish cities appear in the top twenty today, led by Vigo, Spain where solar noon falls at 14:27. Spain sits almost entirely west of Greenwich and should, on longitude alone, keep the same clock as Portugal and the United Kingdom. It does not, because it moved to Berlin's time in 1940 and never moved back, and the decision is cited in Spain itself every time somebody argues about the length of the working day, the timing of the evening meal or the national sleep deficit.
What makes it a good example is that nothing about it is geographic. The mismatch is a decision, it is reversible, and the country has debated reversing it more than once. Compare the cities on the other side of the ledger, where the clock runs ahead of the Sun instead, and the same administrative logic produces the mirror image of the same complaint.
Questions about this ranking
- Where is solar noon latest in the day?
- Today it is Nome, AK, where the Sun peaks at 14:53 on the local clock, 2 hours 53 minutes after midday.
- Why is solar noon not at 12:00?
- Because clocks are set by zone, not by longitude. Every degree away from the zone's central meridian moves solar noon by four minutes, daylight saving moves it by another hour, and the equation of time adds a seasonal wobble of up to sixteen minutes.
- Does daylight saving make this worse?
- Substantially. Summer time adds a full hour to the gap wherever it is observed, which is why the top of this ranking looks different in January and July.
- How many cities are more than two hours out?
- 60 of the 6,338 we publish, as of the instant this page was built.