athens.taipei The Atlas of City Experiences
The Anti-Awards

24 rankings. Every one is the true extreme of a real measurement — there is no worst city, only cities magnificently bad at one specific thing.

All 24 rankings →
The weather6
The Sauna You Can’t LeaveThe Bedroom That Never CoolsThe Umbrella EconomyRain, By The MetreSixteen Thousand DaysThe Year Without a Window
The hours it keeps6
The Cinderella ClauseThe Early Bedtime AwardThe Sunday Ghost TownThe Breakfast DesertThe Great Lunch VanishingThe Part-Time City
Getting out5
The Great Escape IndexHardest City to Leave (In a Hurry)The Domestic BubbleThe Hibernating AirportThe Perth Meridian
The ground and the sky4
The Wobbliest GroundThe Volcano PartyThe Volcano Next DoorThe 3 p.m. Sunset Club
Everything else3
The Monoculture MenuThe Calendar of ExcusesA Gigabyte of Cats
Tools

Three ways to interrogate the atlas rather than read it.

Open the comparer →
Compare two cities Head-to-head on absurd terms only. No GDP, no cappuccino index. The year, month by month Where to be in each month, who has the most days off, and when the airports peak. Start from a goal Eat well at 2 a.m. · Work all day from a café — ranked by what the city keeps open.
How this is made

Every figure on this site states where it came from and what it cannot tell you.

Read the method →
Method & principles What we measure, what we refuse to guess, and why rhythm is never a claim about people. Sources Every corpus behind the atlas, with its licence. Books coming soon The long-form city profiles and the method book. Contact · request a city Tell us what the atlas is missing.
The index

126 cities across the atlas, by region — or browse the full A–Z.

Every city, A–Z →
Southern Europe21
RomeMilanBarcelonaMadridAthensLisbon
Western Europe20
LondonParisLuxembourgViennaAmsterdamDublin
North America & Caribbean18
New YorkMiamiAustinSan FranciscoLos AngelesSeattle
CEE & Balkans16
PragueBudapestWarsawBelgradeBucharestKraków
East Asia12
TokyoOsakaFukuokaSeoulBusanTaipei
South & Southeast Asia11
SingaporeBangkokKuala LumpurChiang MaiDa NangGeorge Town
🇦🇺 Australia · metro 105k · 279 venues mapped

Ballarat

Where Ballarat places among 1,878 cities measured on the one thing that needs no editing — the hours the city keeps. Its strongest showing is shops open on sunday, where it ranks 82 of 1,704.

Nearest city 🇦🇺 Geelong 79 km Nearest written profile 🇦🇺 Melbourne 📖 102 km

Typical weather

1981–present
JFMAMJJASOND
coldcool warmhot ▢ outlined = best time to visit
JFMAMJJASOND
Best time to visit Jan, Feb, Mar, Dec — mild (15–26 °C mean) and not wet months.

City Rhythm

measured

Opening hours, by kind of place

median across mapped venues
Food & drink279 places mapped
08:30–21:00
0006121824
0%
open past midnight
87%
open on Sundays
70h
open per week
6%
take a midday break
15%
open 24/7
Shops & errands159 places mapped
07:00–20:00
0006121824
0%
open past midnight
92%
open on Sundays
80h
open per week
11%
open 24/7

Vital absurdities

measured
0
muggy days a year
0
nights/yr the bedroom never cools
101
umbrella days a year
27.3 m
of rain since 1981
1,421
days over 30 °C, of 16,629
0
volcanoes within 100 km
120.9 km
to Newer Volcanics Province
0
quakes felt per decade (M4.5+, 100 km)
17:13
winter sunset (solar approx.)
14.8 h
longest day of the year
7
public holidays, 2024
2,621
km adrift · the Remote Index

The ranks

floor: 200 mapped venues
MeasureBallarat RankNearest company
Kitchens open past midnight% of food & drink 0% 296 of 1,878 🇪🇨 Ambato 0%🇯🇵 Asahikawa 0%🇺🇸 Atascocita 0%🇫🇷 Auxerre 0%Ballarat🇬🇧 Banbury 0%🇬🇧 Barnsley 0%🇧🇿 Belize City 0%🇳🇵 Bharatpur 0%
Hours open per weekmedian, food & drink 70 h 139 of 1,878 🇵🇱 Koszalin 70.5 h🇮🇹 Rome 70.5 h🇨🇴 Armenia 70 h🇧🇷 Arujá 70 hBallarat🇮🇩 Banjarmasin 70 h🇺🇸 Bellingham 70 h🇬🇧 Blackpool 70 h🇺🇸 Boulder 70 h
Open before 8 a.m.% of food & drink 24.1% 236 of 1,878 🇮🇹 L'Aquila 24.2%🇳🇮 Managua 24.2%🇧🇫 Ouagadougou 24.2%🇸🇻 Santa Ana 24.2%Ballarat🇿🇦 Cape Town 24.1%🇭🇺 Kecskemét 24.1%🇺🇸 North Charleston 24.1%🇺🇸 Bloomington 24%
Vanish at lunch% taking a midday break 6.3% 321 of 1,878 🇬🇧 Chelmsford 6.6%🇬🇧 Littlehampton 6.6%🇬🇧 Maidstone 6.5%🇨🇴 Barranquilla 6.4%Ballarat🇪🇸 Avilés 6.2%🇬🇧 Banbury 6.2%🇬🇧 Llandudno 6.2%🇧🇭 Manama 6.2%
Never close at all% open 24/7 15.2% 86 of 1,878 🇨🇦 Airdrie 15.4%🇰🇿 Atyrau 15.4%🇦🇿 Baku 15.4%🇮🇷 Yazd 15.4%Ballarat🇺🇸 Fair Oaks 15.2%🇨🇳 Changsha 15%🇧🇷 Maringá 15%🇨🇺 Santiago de Cuba 15%
Shops open on Sunday% of retail 91.5% 82 of 1,704 🇫🇮 Joensuu 91.7%🇺🇸 Olympia 91.7%🇬🇧 Runcorn 91.7%🇬🇧 Weston-super-Mare 91.7%Ballarat🇻🇪 Caracas 91.4%🇮🇩 Gresik 91.4%🇰🇷 Gwangju 91.4%🇺🇸 Flagstaff 91.3%

The same questions are asked of the 126 cities with a written profile, where each one gets its method and its full standings: kitchens open past midnight, hours open per week, open before 8 a.m., vanish at lunch, shops open on sunday.

← All 1,878 ranked cities