Summer solstice
The longest day of the year varies in length in Germany
The summer solstice is approaching, after which the days will become shorter again
© ABB / Picture Alliance
The summer solstice marks the longest day of the year. However, the length of daylight in Germany varies greatly depending on where you live, as the graphic below shows.
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Days of different lengths? A day always has 24 hours. Sure – but how many hours of daylight a place actually gets depends on how far south or north it is and what latitude it is at. Only at zero degrees on the equator are the days and nights always the same length – namely always twelve hours each.
In summer, the length of daylight reaches its maximum: the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, usually falls on June 21st, but in the leap year 2024 it will be June 20th. After that, the length of daylight decreases again until the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, is reached on December 21st. As mentioned at the beginning, how much daylight a place gets on these days depends on the latitude at which it is located. The further north, the longer the days in summer. In List on Sylt, the northernmost municipality in Germany, it is almost an hour and a half longer than in Oberstdorf, the southernmost town. Small consolation: In the other half of the year it is the other way around – the shortest day of the year in winter is correspondingly longer in Oberstdorf than in List.
Graphic I: Different daylight durations in Germany
The graphic below shows how differently the days are distributed in selected locations across Germany:
The background: Due to the tilted axis of the earth, the northern hemisphere is closer to the sun in the first half of the year, while in the second half of the year it is the southern hemisphere. From a certain northern latitude, the sun sometimes does not set at all in June, and does not rise again in December. In the southern hemisphere, the situation is exactly the other way round.
Graphic II: Daylight duration at different latitudes
The graphic below shows the daylight hours outside the Arctic Circle. Germany lies between the 47th and 55th northern latitude.
Hover over the latitude of your region to see the daylight hours for different seasons and individual days.
The fact that the sun rises and sets at all is due to the rotation of the earth. In places further east, the sunrise is earlier than in the west. On June 20, the sun rose in Leipzig at 4:53 a.m. and set again at 9:30 p.m. In Cologne, on the other hand, it rose at 5:17 a.m. and set again at 9:49 p.m. The length of daylight differs only slightly in the cities, which are both located around the 51st parallel. And in the end, the day there, like everywhere else, has 24 hours – some of them light, the rest dark.
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