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Major cities with the highest modelled solar exposure

Los Angeles, United States has the highest solar exposure (modelled) of the 30 cities compared: 5.65 kWh/m²/day (NASA POWER 20-year meteorological and solar climatology, 2001-2020).

JSON Markdown

NASA POWER annual mean daily surface shortwave energy in kWh/m²/day. This is a consistent solar-exposure metric and is not relabelled as sunny days.

Items compared
30
Countries represented
13
Last checked
2026-07-16

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Source-backed answers

Compare each answer with its unit and checked date; the complete source ledger is below.

Showing all 30 rows

Original rankCity or placeSource and scope
1Los Angeles, United States5.65 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020
2Lisbon, Portugal4.8 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020
3Sintra, Portugal4.8 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020
4Madrid, Spain4.7 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020
5Valencia, Spain4.66 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020
6Nîmes, France4.41 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020
7Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal4.39 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020
8Barcelona, Spain4.38 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020
9Genova, Italy3.94 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020
10New York, United States3.92 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020
11Varna, Bulgaria3.92 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020
12Plovdiv, Bulgaria3.89 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020
13Chicago, United States3.84 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020
14Sofia, Bulgaria3.84 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020
15Bucharest, Romania3.83 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020
16Milano, Italy3.78 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020
17Saint-Étienne, France3.74 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020
18Torino, Italy3.72 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020
19Toronto, Canada3.65 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020
20Montreal, Canada3.54 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020
21Iași, Romania3.53 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020
22Cluj-Napoca, Romania3.51 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020
23Calgary, Canada3.51 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020
24Paris, France3.31 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020
25Munich, Germany3.25 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020
26Graz, Austria3.24 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020
27Linz, Austria3.21 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020
28Charleroi, Belgium3.04 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020
29Cork, Ireland3.03 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020
30Rotterdam, Netherlands3.03 kWh/m²/day2026-07-16
Source Scope: city coordinate grid · Period: 2001-2020

What the numbers say

  • Los Angeles, United States leads at 5.65 kWh/m²/day.
  • Rotterdam, Netherlands sits at the other end with 3.03 kWh/m²/day.
  • The middle of this ranking is 3.83 kWh/m²/day, across 30 places that publish the metric.
  • The spread between first and last is 2.62 kWh/m²/day.

Quick answer

What does Major cities with the highest modelled solar exposure show?

Los Angeles, United States has the highest solar exposure (modelled) of the 30 cities compared: 5.65 kWh/m²/day (NASA POWER 20-year meteorological and solar climatology, 2001-2020).

How this list is built

Every row is a published solar exposure (modelled) observation measured in kWh/m²/day, ranked highest first. The values were observed in 2001. A place appears only when it publishes this exact metric, so an absent place means missing data rather than a low value. Only published cities with at least 100,000 residents and city-level observations qualify.

  • Compare the displayed value, unit, source date and geographic grain together.
  • A city label does not change a regional observation into a city measurement.
Rows
30 places
Geographic grain
city coordinate grid
Observation period
2001-2020
Last checked
2026-07-16
With an official source link
30 of 30

Cite this page

Open a format to select or copy this ImmigrationDB compilation citation. The native disclosure and text fallback work without JavaScript.

APA citation
ImmigrationDB. (2026, October 16). Major cities with the highest modelled solar exposure [ImmigrationDB compilation; version ea0ef8db9c47340d0cf9b5b7b20b6381]. ImmigrationDB. https://immigrationdb.com/reports/major-cities-highest-modelled-solar-exposure/ Retrieved 2026-10-16. Compilation license: CC BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
BibTeX citation
@misc{immigrationdb_immigrationdb_major-cities-with-the-highest-modelled-solar-exposure_735223c6d8bb,
  author = {ImmigrationDB},
  title = {Major cities with the highest modelled solar exposure},
  publisher = {ImmigrationDB},
  year = {2026},
  date = {2026-10-16},
  version = {ea0ef8db9c47340d0cf9b5b7b20b6381},
  url = {https://immigrationdb.com/reports/major-cities-highest-modelled-solar-exposure/},
  note = {Retrieved 2026-10-16. ImmigrationDB compilation. Compilation license: CC BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/},
}
Markdown citation
[Major cities with the highest modelled solar exposure](https://immigrationdb.com/reports/major-cities-highest-modelled-solar-exposure/) — ImmigrationDB; ImmigrationDB; version ea0ef8db9c47340d0cf9b5b7b20b6381; retrieved 2026-10-16; built 2026-10-16.

This citation identifies the ImmigrationDB compilation/page. Underlying source publishers and datasets retain their own terms; inspect the Sources section and cite those records separately. View the underlying source records.

Sources

  1. NASA POWER 20-year meteorological and solar climatologyNASA POWER · Checked 2026-07-16