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 Kingdom · metro 236k · 722 venues mapped

Preston

Where Preston 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 108 of 1,704.

Nearest city 🇬🇧 Blackburn 15 km Nearest written profile 🇮🇪 Dublin 📖 239 km

Typical weather

1981–present
JFMAMJJASOND
coldcool warmhot
JFMAMJJASOND
Come for everything else Preston 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 & drink722 places mapped
11:00–22:00
0006121824
5%
open past midnight
81%
open on Sundays
54h
open per week
10%
take a midday break
3%
open 24/7
Shops & errands282 places mapped
07:00–22:00
0006121824
1%
open past midnight
88%
open on Sundays
103h
open per week
5%
open 24/7
Services105 places mapped
09:00–17:30
0006121824
0%
open past midnight
32%
open on Sundays
48h
open per week

Vital absurdities

measured
0
muggy days a year
0
nights/yr the bedroom never cools
201
umbrella days a year
51.1 m
of rain since 1981
1
days over 30 °C, of 16,630
0
volcanoes within 100 km
765.9 km
to West Eifel Volcanic Field
0
quakes felt per decade (M4.5+, 100 km)
15:52
winter sunset (solar approx.)
17.1 h
longest day of the year
6
public holidays, 2024
14,657
km adrift · the Remote Index

The ranks

floor: 200 mapped venues
MeasurePreston RankNearest company
Kitchens open past midnight% of food & drink 5.4% 246 of 1,878 🇫🇷 Colmar 5.4%🇹🇭 Ko Samui 5.4%🇩🇪 Landshut 5.4%🇬🇧 Loughborough 5.4%Preston🇩🇪 Schweinfurt 5.4%🇧🇪 Temse 5.4%🇧🇷 Arujá 5.3%🇬🇧 Bournemouth 5.3%
Hours open per weekmedian, food & drink 53.5 h 209 of 1,878 🇵🇹 Tavira 53.8 h🇮🇹 Acireale 53.5 h🇳🇱 Breda 53.5 h🇩🇪 Coburg 53.5 hPreston🇩🇪 Bielefeld 53.2 h🇫🇷 Douai 53.2 h🇩🇪 Paderborn 53.2 h🇪🇸 Vilanova i la Geltrú 53.2 h
Open before 8 a.m.% of food & drink 14.1% 331 of 1,878 🇩🇪 Wilhelmshaven 14.2%🇮🇳 Kottayam 14.1%🇯🇵 Nagoya 14.1%🇮🇹 Novara 14.1%Preston🇮🇩 Singkawang 14.1%🇯🇴 Amman 14%🇹🇭 Ko Samui 14%🇮🇹 Lucca 14%
Vanish at lunch% taking a midday break 10.1% 286 of 1,878 🇩🇪 Hildesheim 10.3%🇮🇳 Mangaluru 10.3%🇧🇷 Florianópolis 10.1%🇩🇪 Neumünster 10.1%Preston🇧🇷 Sapiranga 10.1%🇭🇰 Tuen Mun 10.1%🇨🇳 Changsha 10%🇬🇮 Gibraltar 10%
Never close at all% open 24/7 3.4% 197 of 1,878 🇮🇳 Kolkata 3.4%🇨🇾 Limassol 3.4%🇲🇿 Maputo 3.4%🇺🇸 Olathe 3.4%Preston🇺🇸 Springfield 3.4%🇮🇹 Taranto 3.4%🇷🇺 Tyumen 3.4%🇧🇬 Varna 3.4%
Shops open on Sunday% of retail 88.5% 108 of 1,704 🇺🇸 Stillwater 88.9%🇮🇹 Trapani 88.9%🇧🇬 Burgas 88.5%🇺🇸 Lancaster 88.5%Preston🇺🇸 Salt Lake City 88.5%🇧🇷 Santos 88.5%🇮🇩 Semarang 88.5%🇯🇵 Toyohashi 88.5%

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