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
🇧🇬 Bulgaria · metro 1.1M · 3,679 venues mapped

Sofia

Where Sofia 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 110 of 1,878.

This city has a full profile Read Sofia in the atlas → Weather, rhythm, seasons, sourced claims and its vital absurdities.
Nearest city 🇧🇬 Plovdiv 132 km Nearest written profile 🇬🇷 Thessaloniki 📖 231 km

Typical weather

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

City Rhythm

measured

Opening hours, by kind of place

median across mapped venues
Food & drink3,679 places mapped
10:00–22:00
0006121824
7%
open past midnight
72%
open on Sundays
77h
open per week
4%
open 24/7
Shops & errands2,898 places mapped
07:30–21:00
0006121824
0%
open past midnight
81%
open on Sundays
91h
open per week
8%
open 24/7

Vital absurdities

measured
0
muggy days a year
0
nights/yr the bedroom never cools
131
umbrella days a year
29.3 m
of rain since 1981
1,129
days over 30 °C, of 16,629
0
volcanoes within 100 km
564.7 km
to Methana
2.6
quakes felt per decade (M4.5+, 100 km)
16:56
winter sunset (solar approx.)
15.3 h
longest day of the year
15
public holidays, 2024
12,536
km adrift · the Remote Index

The ranks

floor: 200 mapped venues
MeasureSofia RankNearest company
Kitchens open past midnight% of food & drink 7% 230 of 1,878 🇺🇸 Olympia 7%🇫🇷 Saint-Louis 7%🇨🇷 San José 7%🇷🇺 Saratov 7%Sofia🇮🇹 Alessandria 6.9%🇺🇸 Baltimore 6.9%🇮🇳 Bengaluru 6.9%🇧🇾 Brest 6.9%
Hours open per weekmedian, food & drink 77.2 h 110 of 1,878 🇨🇦 Cambridge 77.5 h🇺🇸 Chattanooga 77.5 h🇺🇸 Eugene 77.5 h🇺🇸 Redding 77.5 hSofia🇪🇸 Torrevieja 77.2 h🇬🇧 Basingstoke 77 h🇬🇧 Belfast 77 h🇺🇸 Bend 77 h
Open before 8 a.m.% of food & drink 12.6% 346 of 1,878 🇮🇷 Yazd 12.8%🇫🇷 Chartres 12.7%🇯🇵 Fuji 12.7%🇲🇽 Mexico City 12.6%Sofia🇵🇭 Bamban 12.5%🇮🇩 Bandung 12.5%🇬🇧 Barry 12.5%🇭🇺 Budapest 12.5%
Vanish at lunch% taking a midday break 0.6% 378 of 1,878 🇨🇱 Penco 0.6%🇺🇸 Phoenix 0.6%🇺🇸 Redding 0.6%🇺🇸 San Antonio 0.6%Sofia🇺🇸 Toledo 0.6%🇺🇸 White Plains 0.6%🇷🇴 Brasov 0.5%🇺🇸 Buffalo 0.5%
Never close at all% open 24/7 3.9% 192 of 1,878 🇺🇸 Newport News 3.9%🇺🇸 Oshkosh 3.9%🇺🇸 Rockford 3.9%🇺🇸 Salinas 3.9%Sofia🇹🇼 Taitung 3.9%🇺🇸 Wilmington 3.9%🇱🇰 Ambalangoda 3.8%🇺🇸 Cincinnati 3.8%
Shops open on Sunday% of retail 80.9% 173 of 1,704 🇨🇦 Sherwood Park 81.1%🇫🇷 Lens 81%🇮🇹 Rovereto 81%🇲🇽 San Andrés Cholula 81%Sofia🇬🇧 Taunton 80.9%🇫🇷 Toulon 80.9%🇺🇸 Layton 80.8%🇫🇷 Maurepas 80.8%

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