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
🇺🇸 United States · metro 243k · 1,607 venues mapped

Des Moines

Where Des Moines places among 1,878 cities measured on the one thing that needs no editing — the hours the city keeps. Its strongest showing is hours open per week, where it ranks 82 of 1,878.

Nearest city 🇺🇸 Ames 48 km Nearest written profile 🇨🇦 Toronto 📖 1,184 km

Typical weather

1981–present
JFMAMJJASOND
coldcool warmhot
JFMAMJJASOND
Come for everything else Des Moines does a lot well. The weather is not on the list.

City Rhythm

measured

Opening hours, by kind of place

median across mapped venues
Food & drink1,607 places mapped
10:00–22:00
0006121824
18%
open past midnight
86%
open on Sundays
84h
open per week
Shops & errands587 places mapped
07:00–22:00
0006121824
0%
open past midnight
91%
open on Sundays
98h
open per week
17%
open 24/7

Vital absurdities

measured
30
muggy days a year
1
nights/yr the bedroom never cools
101
umbrella days a year
40.1 m
of rain since 1981
1,858
days over 30 °C, of 16,626
0
volcanoes within 100 km
1152.1 km
to Dotsero
0
quakes felt per decade (M4.5+, 100 km)
16:48
winter sunset (solar approx.)
15.2 h
longest day of the year
11
public holidays, 2024
17,197
km adrift · the Remote Index

The ranks

floor: 200 mapped venues
MeasureDes Moines RankNearest company
Kitchens open past midnight% of food & drink 18% 121 of 1,878 🇺🇸 Champaign 18.1%🇫🇮 Jyväskylä 18.1%🇨🇦 London 18.1%🇫🇷 Saint-Étienne 18.1%Des Moines🇪🇸 Salamanca 18%🇪🇸 Santander 18%🇩🇴 Santo Domingo 18%🇷🇺 Ulyanovsk 18%
Hours open per weekmedian, food & drink 84 h 82 of 1,878 🇷🇴 Craiova 84 h🇰🇷 Daejeon 84 h🇸🇳 Dakar 84 h🇨🇳 Dalian 84 hDes Moines🇺🇦 Dnipro 84 h🇺🇦 Donetsk 84 h🇨🇦 Edmonton 84 h🇲🇽 Ensenada 84 h
Open before 8 a.m.% of food & drink 27.6% 204 of 1,878 🇺🇸 Conway 27.7%🇴🇲 Muscat 27.7%🇬🇧 Bracknell 27.6%🇮🇹 Brindisi 27.6%Des Moines🇺🇸 Valdosta 27.6%🇮🇳 Attingal 27.5%🇺🇸 Madison 27.5%🇮🇹 Bassano del Grappa 27.4%
Vanish at lunch% taking a midday break 3.3% 351 of 1,878 🇻🇳 Nha Trang 3.4%🇱🇦 Pakse 3.4%🇧🇷 Teresina 3.4%🇬🇧 Torquay 3.4%Des Moines🇺🇸 Draper 3.3%🇳🇱 Heerlen 3.3%🇹🇭 Khon Kaen 3.3%🇮🇳 Kollam 3.3%
Never close at all% open 24/7 0.7% 224 of 1,878 🇩🇪 Bensheim 0.7%🇪🇸 Bilbao 0.7%🇬🇧 Canterbury 0.7%🇩🇪 Darmstadt 0.7%Des Moines🇺🇸 Grand Rapids 0.7%🇺🇸 Joliet 0.7%🇩🇪 Kehl 0.7%🇫🇷 Poissy 0.7%
Shops open on Sunday% of retail 90.9% 88 of 1,704 🇵🇹 Barreiro 91%🇮🇹 San Giuseppe Vesuviano 91%🇷🇸 Subotica 91%🇨🇦 Vancouver 91%Des Moines🇯🇵 Fuji 90.9%🇲🇽 Hermosillo 90.9%🇨🇦 Kitchener 90.9%🇳🇪 Niamey 90.9%

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