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 273k · 1,390 venues mapped

Reading

Where Reading 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 37 of 1,704.

Nearest city 🇬🇧 Bracknell 16 km Nearest written profile 🇬🇧 London 📖 59 km

Typical weather

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

City Rhythm

measured

Opening hours, by kind of place

median across mapped venues
Food & drink1,390 places mapped
10:00–22:30
0006121824
4%
open past midnight
82%
open on Sundays
74h
open per week
11%
take a midday break
3%
open 24/7
Shops & errands518 places mapped
07:00–22:00
0006121824
0%
open past midnight
96%
open on Sundays
104h
open per week
8%
open 24/7
Culture335 places mapped
09:30–19:00
0006121824
0%
open past midnight
30%
open on Sundays
36h
open per week
9%
take a midday break
Services189 places mapped
09:00–17:45
0006121824
0%
open past midnight
29%
open on Sundays
49h
open per week

Vital absurdities

measured
0
muggy days a year
0
nights/yr the bedroom never cools
149
umbrella days a year
34 m
of rain since 1981
92
days over 30 °C, of 16,630
0
volcanoes within 100 km
567.5 km
to West Eifel Volcanic Field
0
quakes felt per decade (M4.5+, 100 km)
15:57
winter sunset (solar approx.)
16.6 h
longest day of the year
6
public holidays, 2024
14,537
km adrift · the Remote Index

The ranks

floor: 200 mapped venues
MeasureReading RankNearest company
Kitchens open past midnight% of food & drink 4.3% 257 of 1,878 🇪🇸 Gandia 4.3%🇩🇪 Gerlingen 4.3%🇲🇽 Guadalupe 4.3%🇧🇪 Liège 4.3%Reading🇩🇪 Siegen 4.3%🇵🇪 Trujillo 4.3%🇺🇸 Watsonville 4.3%🇬🇧 Basingstoke 4.2%
Hours open per weekmedian, food & drink 73.8 h 126 of 1,878 🇺🇸 State College 74 h🇭🇺 Székesfehérvár 74 h🇨🇱 Valparaíso 74 h🇪🇸 Donostia / San Sebastián 73.8 hReading🇵🇹 Almada 73.5 h🇺🇦 Druzhkivka 73.5 h🇳🇮 Granada 73.5 h🇰🇷 Gwangju 73.5 h
Open before 8 a.m.% of food & drink 20.9% 265 of 1,878 🇲🇲 Twante 21%🇮🇹 Chieti 20.9%🇮🇩 Malang 20.9%🇮🇳 Mangalagiri 20.9%Reading🇱🇰 Ambalangoda 20.8%🇧🇿 Belize City 20.8%🇬🇧 Chester 20.8%🇨🇳 Fangshan 20.8%
Vanish at lunch% taking a midday break 11% 280 of 1,878 🇦🇷 La Plata 11.1%🇧🇷 Pelotas 11.1%🇵🇪 Pisco 11.1%🇺🇸 Chapel Hill 11%Reading🇩🇪 Bremen 10.9%🇲🇾 Kota Kinabalu 10.9%🇮🇳 Chennai 10.7%🇳🇿 Wellington 10.7%
Never close at all% open 24/7 2.8% 203 of 1,878 🇧🇦 Mostar 2.8%🇺🇸 Mount Pleasant 2.8%🇹🇭 Phitsanulok 2.8%🇵🇾 Presidente Franco 2.8%Reading🇺🇸 Salem 2.8%🇵🇱 Sosnowiec 2.8%🇺🇸 Spokane Valley 2.8%🇬🇧 Warwick 2.8%
Shops open on Sunday% of retail 96.2% 37 of 1,704 🇮🇱 Haifa 96.2%🇯🇵 Narita 96.2%🇺🇸 Philadelphia 96.2%🇺🇦 Poltava 96.2%Reading🇺🇸 Rochester 96.2%🇬🇧 Swindon 96.2%🇹🇼 Taitung 96.2%🇺🇸 Ann Arbor 96.1%

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