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
🇩🇪 Germany · metro 2.7M · 4,462 venues mapped

Essen

Where Essen 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 181 of 1,878.

Nearest city 🇩🇪 Marl 23 km Nearest written profile 🇳🇱 Eindhoven 📖 106 km

Typical weather

1981–present
JFMAMJJASOND
coldcool warmhot
JFMAMJJASOND
Come for everything else Essen 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 & drink4,462 places mapped
11:30–22:00
0006121824
6%
open past midnight
78%
open on Sundays
60h
open per week
11%
take a midday break
Shops & errands3,140 places mapped
07:00–21:00
0006121824
1%
open past midnight
26%
open on Sundays
84h
open per week
Services1,110 places mapped
08:30–18:30
0006121824
0%
open past midnight
6%
open on Sundays
46h
open per week
34%
take a midday break
Culture1,032 places mapped
10:00–18:30
0006121824
0%
open past midnight
36%
open on Sundays
30h
open per week

Vital absurdities

measured
0
muggy days a year
0
nights/yr the bedroom never cools
162
umbrella days a year
40.4 m
of rain since 1981
148
days over 30 °C, of 16,630
0
volcanoes within 100 km
143.5 km
to West Eifel Volcanic Field
0.8
quakes felt per decade (M4.5+, 100 km)
16:25
winter sunset (solar approx.)
16.6 h
longest day of the year
9
public holidays, 2024
13,987
km adrift · the Remote Index

The ranks

floor: 200 mapped venues
MeasureEssen RankNearest company
Kitchens open past midnight% of food & drink 6.3% 237 of 1,878 🇫🇷 Arras 6.3%🇨🇴 Bogota 6.3%🇬🇧 Bristol 6.3%🇩🇪 Dessau 6.3%Essen🇩🇪 Münster 6.3%🇺🇸 Pensacola 6.3%🇮🇩 Rangkasbitung 6.3%🇺🇸 Santa Barbara 6.3%
Hours open per weekmedian, food & drink 60 h 181 of 1,878 🇦🇹 Bregenz 60 h🇩🇪 Dortmund 60 h🇬🇧 Dundee 60 h🇯🇵 Echizen 60 hEssen🇪🇸 Gandia 60 h🇩🇪 Hamburg 60 h🇯🇵 Hirosaki 60 h🇳🇱 Hoofddorp 60 h
Open before 8 a.m.% of food & drink 5% 422 of 1,878 🇧🇪 Namur 5.1%🇩🇪 Neuwied 5.1%🇩🇪 Wiesbaden 5.1%🇩🇪 Bad Kreuznach 5%Essen🇱🇹 Kaunas 5%🇩🇪 Lüneburg 5%🇪🇸 Marbella 5%🇨🇾 Protaras 5%
Vanish at lunch% taking a midday break 11.4% 276 of 1,878 🇩🇪 Dresden 11.6%🇩🇪 Reinbek 11.5%🇵🇹 Amora 11.4%🇩🇪 Erfurt 11.4%Essen🇯🇵 Sendai 11.4%🇩🇿 Algiers 11.3%🇬🇧 Basingstoke 11.3%🇨🇳 Guangzhou 11.2%
Never close at all% open 24/7 1.3% 218 of 1,878 🇪🇸 Burgos 1.3%🇬🇧 Cheltenham 1.3%🇪🇸 Donostia / San Sebastián 1.3%🇮🇪 Dublin 1.3%Essen🇮🇹 Gallarate 1.3%🇺🇸 Johnson City 1.3%🇯🇵 Kanazawa 1.3%🇱🇹 Klaipėda 1.3%
Shops open on Sunday% of retail 26.2% 471 of 1,704 🇬🇷 Athens 26.6%🇩🇪 Mönchengladbach 26.6%🇩🇪 Ravensburg 26.6%🇩🇪 Bielefeld 26.2%Essen🇳🇴 Trondheim 26%🇩🇪 Munich 25.9%🇩🇪 Stuttgart 25.8%🇩🇪 Potsdam 25.6%

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