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
🇰🇷 South Korea · metro 22.3M · 42,861 venues mapped

Seoul

Where Seoul 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 17 of 1,704.

This city has a full profile Read Seoul in the atlas → Weather, rhythm, seasons, sourced claims and its vital absurdities.
Nearest city 🇰🇷 Chuncheon 75 km Nearest written profile 🇰🇷 Busan 📖 330 km

Typical weather

1981–present
JFMAMJJASOND
coldcool warmhot
JFMAMJJASOND
Come for everything else Seoul 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 & drink42,861 places mapped
10:00–22:00
0006121824
11%
open past midnight
89%
open on Sundays
80h
open per week
9%
open 24/7
Shops & errands9,340 places mapped
00:00–24:00
0006121824
2%
open past midnight
98%
open on Sundays
168h
open per week
68%
open 24/7

Vital absurdities

measured
60
muggy days a year
6
nights/yr the bedroom never cools
108
umbrella days a year
57.9 m
of rain since 1981
491
days over 30 °C, of 16,630
0
volcanoes within 100 km
343.2 km
to Ulleungdo
0
quakes felt per decade (M4.5+, 100 km)
17:17
winter sunset (solar approx.)
14.8 h
longest day of the year
19
public holidays, 2024
7,816
km adrift · the Remote Index

The ranks

floor: 200 mapped venues
MeasureSeoul RankNearest company
Kitchens open past midnight% of food & drink 11.3% 187 of 1,878 🇲🇽 Monterrey 11.3%🇫🇷 Pau 11.3%🇮🇹 Rimini 11.3%🇷🇺 Ryazan 11.3%Seoul🇷🇺 Surgut 11.3%🇺🇸 York 11.3%🇪🇸 Ferrol 11.2%🇺🇸 Holland 11.2%
Hours open per weekmedian, food & drink 80.5 h 96 of 1,878 🇺🇸 Provo 80.5 h🇺🇸 Rapid City 80.5 h🇲🇾 Rawang 80.5 h🇯🇵 Sano 80.5 hSeoul🇵🇹 Setúbal 80.5 h🇺🇸 Tallahassee 80.5 h🇵🇹 Amora 80 h🇺🇸 Annapolis 80 h
Open before 8 a.m.% of food & drink 8.5% 387 of 1,878 🇨🇴 Ibagué 8.5%🇩🇪 Lübeck 8.5%🇯🇵 Marugame 8.5%🇬🇧 Norwich 8.5%Seoul🇷🇴 Brasov 8.4%🇵🇱 Gdynia 8.4%🇵🇱 Krakow 8.4%🇪🇸 Mataró 8.4%
Vanish at lunch% taking a midday break 3.7% 347 of 1,878 🇨🇴 Cúcuta 3.7%🇬🇧 Derby 3.7%🇱🇰 Galle 3.7%🇬🇧 Salisbury 3.7%Seoul🇬🇧 Shrewsbury 3.7%🇺🇸 Watsonville 3.7%🇻🇳 Đà Nẵng 3.7%🇬🇧 Basildon 3.6%
Never close at all% open 24/7 9% 141 of 1,878 🇧🇦 Tuzla 9.1%🇺🇸 Canton 9%🇷🇺 Odintsovo 9%🇩🇴 Santo Domingo 9%Seoul🇺🇦 Kherson 8.9%🇷🇺 Kirov 8.9%🇺🇸 Norcross 8.9%🇺🇸 Norwalk 8.9%
Shops open on Sunday% of retail 98.2% 17 of 1,704 🇹🇷 Eskisehir 98.2%🇯🇵 Kanazawa 98.2%🇺🇦 Luhansk 98.2%🇺🇸 North Richland Hills 98.2%Seoul🇵🇭 Tagaytay 98.2%🇹🇼 Tainan 98.2%🇷🇺 Yeysk 98.2%🇺🇸 Chicago 98.1%

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