The Sunniest Countries in the World, Continent by Continent

The sunniest countries in the world are the United States, Egypt and Chile. Measured by each country’s sunniest weather station, Yuma in Arizona averages about 4,015 hours of bright sunshine a year, Marsa Alam on Egypt’s Red Sea coast about 3,958 hours, and Calama in Chile’s Atacama Desert about 3,926 hours. These figures come from the climate normals compiled in Wikipedia’s List of cities by sunshine duration (checked September 2026). Behind the top three comes a long run of African countries: Sudan, South Africa, Algeria, Madagascar, Kenya and Botswana all have a city above 3,570 hours. Australia completes the top ten. No country in Europe or Asia makes it, and the continent-by-continent pattern below shows why.

First, a note on the measure. A “sunshine hour” is not simply an hour of daylight. Since 2003 the World Meteorological Organization has defined sunshine duration as the time when direct sunlight is stronger than 120 watts per square metre. The traditional instrument is the Campbell–Stokes recorder, a glass sphere that focuses the sun onto a card and burns a trace whenever the light is strong enough. If the sun were above the horizon for exactly half of the year’s 8,760 hours, the most any place could record would be about 4,380 hours. So Yuma’s 4,015 hours means bright sunshine for roughly 90 percent of the daylight hours it could possibly have. Wikipedia’s Yuma article adds a caveat: the instruments used in the United States tend to give higher readings than the traditional Campbell–Stokes recorder. There is no official average for whole countries, which is why this ranking uses each country’s sunniest listed city.

The global top ten: every country’s sunniest measured city

The spread is narrow: only about 450 hours separate first place from tenth. Small differences in which stations a weather service publishes can therefore move countries several places. Aswan in southern Egypt, for example, is not in the list, but the NOAA figures on its own Wikipedia page give 3,862.8 hours, which on its own would still put Egypt in the top three.

Africa: Egypt, Sudan and the Kalahari take seven of the ten places

Seven of the ten places go to African countries, and most of them come from two separate dry belts. The first is the Sahara and its edges. Here the subtropical high-pressure belt keeps air sinking, and sinking air stops clouds from forming. Marsa Alam, a resort town on Egypt’s Red Sea coast, leads the region. Its figure comes from a travel-climate guide rather than from Egypt’s meteorological authority, so the Aswan normals are a useful check, and they agree. Egypt’s bigger cities are only a little behind: Alexandria records about 3,580 hours and Cairo about 3,542. Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, averages about 3,737 hours, and Tamanrasset, an oasis at 1,320 m in Algeria’s Ahaggar Mountains, about 3,686.

Aswan shows what these numbers mean on the ground. The city stands on the east bank of the Nile at the First Cataract, just north of the Aswan Dam. The NOAA figures record sunshine for 81 to 82 percent of the possible daylight hours in December and January, rising to 94 percent in June, and 88 percent across the year. Aswan averages less than 1 mm of rain a year, and rain does not fall every year: by early 2001 the city had gone seven years without any. With skies that dry, the sunshine recorder is close to its astronomical limit for months at a time.

The second belt lies in the southern hemisphere, around the Kalahari. Upington, on the Orange River in South Africa’s Northern Cape, averages about 3,732 hours. Ghanzi, in the middle of the Kalahari in western Botswana, averages about 3,579. Toliara, on Madagascar’s dry southwest coast, averages about 3,610. Kenya’s entry sits outside both belts: Lodwar, the capital of Turkana County in the arid northwest, west of Lake Turkana, with about 3,582 hours. Chad’s Abéché (about 3,501 hours) and Niger’s Niamey (about 3,203) are sunny too. Both lie south of the Sahara, where a summer rainy season brings more cloud.

The Americas: Yuma, the Atacama and a long cloudy middle

Yuma, in the far southwest corner of Arizona near the Colorado River and the Mexican border, is the sunniest city on the list worldwide. It is also the driest, sunniest and least humid populated place in the contiguous United States. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s normals give it about 4,015 hours a year: 415 hours in June and even 253 hours in December. Phoenix (about 3,872 hours) and Las Vegas (about 3,825) are not far behind.

South America’s leader is Calama, a city of about 166,000 people in Chile’s Antofagasta Region. It lies in the Atacama Desert and receives about 5 mm of rain a year. The Atacama sits between the Andes and the Chilean Coast Range, which block moisture from both the Pacific and the Atlantic, and the cold Humboldt Current and the South Pacific anticyclone add to the effect. Chile’s other cities fall off quickly away from the desert interior: Antofagasta, on the coast of the same region, records about 3,077 hours, and the capital Santiago about 2,808. The same coast produces a striking contrast inside Peru. Arequipa, in the Andes, gets about 3,333 hours. Lima, on the coast, gets only about 1,230, because from about late May to November a persistent layer of low cloud, with morning drizzle known as garúa, sits over the capital.

Between the two deserts the numbers drop. Mexico’s sunniest listed city is La Paz in Baja California Sur, at about 3,148 hours, while Mexico City gets about 2,555. Canada’s sunniest is Calgary, with about 2,396 hours. The humid tropics of Colombia and Brazil also fall well short of the deserts: Barranquilla gets about 2,561 hours and Fortaleza about 2,804.

Asia and the Gulf: Dubai and Muscat lead, Chongqing trails

Asia’s sunniest listed city is Dubai, with about 3,509 hours, followed by Muscat in Oman with about 3,493. Both lie in the same subtropical high-pressure belt as Egypt. Further inland, Kandahar in Afghanistan (about 3,376 hours) and Quetta in Pakistan (about 3,341) are sunny because they lie far inland, well away from the sea. Israel’s Tel Aviv records about 3,311 hours, Isfahan in Iran about 3,280, and Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh about 3,225. Baghdad (about 3,241 hours) and Bandar Abbas on Iran’s Gulf coast (about 3,242) also clear 3,200, but the totals fall further north: Tehran records about 2,826 and Beirut about 2,940.

The rest of Asia shows how much the monsoon matters. Lhasa, at about 3,600 m in Tibet, gets about 2,990 hours, the most of any Chinese city on the list. Chongqing, in the Sichuan Basin, gets about 983 hours, and Chengdu about 1,073. They are among the cloudiest large cities in the world. India’s best is Chennai, with about 2,849 hours. Monsoon cloud from June to September keeps every Indian city well below the Gulf.

Oceania: Tennant Creek and Australia’s dry interior

Australia is the only country outside Africa and the Americas in the top ten. Tennant Creek, a Northern Territory town of about 3,080 people on the Stuart Highway, averages about 3,566 hours. Oodnadatta in outback South Australia (about 3,514) and Broome on the Kimberley coast (about 3,511) are almost level with it. The interior sits under the same subtropical high-pressure belt that dries out the Sahara and the Kalahari at the same latitudes. Across the Tasman Sea the picture changes. New Zealand’s sunniest listed city, Christchurch, gets about 2,070 hours, and Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea about 2,463.

Europe: Seville’s 3,279 hours against Tórshavn’s 840

Europe has no entry in the global top ten, but it has the biggest range. Seville, in Andalusia, is the sunniest city in Europe’s table, with about 3,279 hours a year. Snow is so rare there that only two snowfalls were recorded in the whole 20th century. Cádiz (about 3,024 hours) and Almería (about 2,994) are close behind among Spanish cities. Tavira on Portugal’s Algarve coast has about 3,177 hours, then Ierapetra on Crete with about 3,102 and Valletta in Malta with about 3,054.

Across the North Atlantic, the numbers drop to some of the lowest anywhere. Tórshavn, the capital of the Faroe Islands, records about 840 hours, fewer than any city on either list; the lowest on the worldwide list is Chongqing. The Icelandic Low brings overcast, stormy weather through the winter. Britain’s sunniest listed city is Southampton, with about 1,706 hours, while Inverness gets about 1,250. Tromsø in northern Norway gets about 1,265. The chart below compares each region’s leader with Tórshavn.

Read continent by continent, the ranking follows a clear rule. The sunniest places sit roughly 15 to 35 degrees north or south of the equator, under sinking subtropical air, and often next to a cold ocean current or in the rain shadow of mountains. That rule explains Yuma, Aswan, Calama, Upington and Tennant Creek. It also explains why sunshine and heat are not the same thing: the hottest countries in the world include humid tropical places that are often cloudy. For the city-by-city view, see our list of the sunniest cities in the world, and for the desert that dominates this ranking, our guide to the Sahara’s geography.