When does the sun rise and set?
Enter a latitude, a longitude and a date, and this calculator returns the sunrise, sunset, solar noon and total day length for that place — using the standard solar-position equations published by NOAA (the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), the same method behind most almanacs and weather services. Times are shown in the local clock you specify with the UTC offset field: enter the offset that applies at that place on that date (for example −4 for US Eastern Daylight Time or +1 for British Summer Time). Defaults are set to Elkridge, Maryland (latitude 39.21, longitude −76.71) on Eastern Daylight Time.
How the calculation works
From the day of the year, the equations estimate the sun's position (its mean anomaly, true longitude and declination), then solve for the hour angle at which the sun crosses the horizon. The crossing is taken at a zenith of 90.833° rather than a flat 90°: the extra 0.833° accounts for atmospheric refraction bending the sun's light and for the sun being a disc rather than a point — together worth about four extra minutes of "daylight" at each end of the day, and the reason an equinox day is a little longer than 12 hours almost everywhere. Results are approximate to within a few minutes; mountains, elevation and haze change the sunrise you actually witness.
Polar day and polar night
Near the poles in midsummer and midwinter the geometry has no solution: the sun never crosses the horizon at all. This calculator detects that honestly — if the hour-angle equation has no answer, it reports a polar day (24 hours of light) or polar night (0 hours) instead of inventing a time. If you plan around daylight — photography, hiking, fasting schedules, solar panels — pair these times with the Moon Phase Calculator for the night side of the story.
Worked example
For Washington, DC (latitude 38.90, longitude −77.04, offset −4) on July 4, 2026, sunrise is about 05:46 and sunset about 20:37 — a summer day of roughly 14 hours 51 minutes.
How to use this calculator
- Enter the latitude and longitude of your place (north and east are positive).
- Enter the local UTC offset that applies there on your date — daylight saving included.
- Pick the date.
- Read sunrise, solar noon, sunset and day length in the results table.
Why solar noon is not 12:00
Solar noon — when the sun is highest — drifts away from clock noon for two reasons: time zones are up to an hour wide, so places at a zone's western edge see the sun culminate well after 12:00; and Earth's elliptical orbit makes apparent solar time run fast or slow against the clock by up to about 16 minutes across the year (the equation of time, the same effect that makes sundials "wrong"). The table shows your solar noon explicitly so you can see both effects at your location.