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 86k · 795 venues mapped

St Albans

Where St Albans 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 80 of 1,704.

Nearest city 🇬🇧 Hemel Hempstead 8 km Nearest written profile 🇬🇧 London 📖 30 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 & drink795 places mapped
11:00–23:00
0006121824
10%
open past midnight
88%
open on Sundays
72h
open per week
11%
take a midday break
Shops & errands257 places mapped
07:00–22:00
0006121824
0%
open past midnight
92%
open on Sundays
96h
open per week
10%
open 24/7
Services114 places mapped
09:00–17:30
0006121824
0%
open past midnight
25%
open on Sundays
48h
open per week

Vital absurdities

measured
0
muggy days a year
0
nights/yr the bedroom never cools
140
umbrella days a year
32 m
of rain since 1981
48
days over 30 °C, of 16,630
0
volcanoes within 100 km
532.6 km
to West Eifel Volcanic Field
0
quakes felt per decade (M4.5+, 100 km)
15:53
winter sunset (solar approx.)
16.7 h
longest day of the year
6
public holidays, 2024
14,494
km adrift · the Remote Index

The ranks

floor: 200 mapped venues
MeasureSt Albans RankNearest company
Kitchens open past midnight% of food & drink 9.9% 201 of 1,878 🇺🇸 Kansas City 9.9%🇫🇷 Le Mans 9.9%🇺🇸 Palm Desert 9.9%🇺🇸 San Luis Obispo 9.9%St Albans🇬🇧 Stevenage 9.9%🇪🇸 Tarragona 9.9%🇷🇺 Yoshkar-Ola 9.9%🇳🇱 Amersfoort 9.8%
Hours open per weekmedian, food & drink 72.5 h 131 of 1,878 🇨🇿 Liberec 72.5 h🇵🇪 Lima 72.5 h🇨🇭 Lugano 72.5 h🇭🇹 Port-au-Prince 72.5 hSt Albans🇬🇧 Telford 72.5 h🇦🇺 Wollongong 72.2 h🇬🇭 Accra 72 h🇵🇹 Albufeira 72 h
Open before 8 a.m.% of food & drink 16.4% 308 of 1,878 🇨🇾 Larnaca 16.5%🇵🇹 Póvoa de Varzim 16.5%🇪🇸 Ferrol 16.4%🇨🇿 Ostrava 16.4%St Albans🇺🇸 Charleston 16.3%🇦🇪 Dubai 16.3%🇬🇧 Gillingham 16.3%🇮🇹 Matera 16.3%
Vanish at lunch% taking a midday break 11.2% 278 of 1,878 🇩🇿 Algiers 11.3%🇬🇧 Basingstoke 11.3%🇨🇳 Guangzhou 11.2%🇩🇪 Halle (Saale) 11.2%St Albans🇬🇧 Taunton 11.2%🇲🇾 George Town 11.1%🇦🇷 La Plata 11.1%🇧🇷 Pelotas 11.1%
Never close at all% open 24/7 0.4% 227 of 1,878 🇩🇪 Munich 0.4%🇨🇭 Neuchâtel 0.4%🇵🇹 Póvoa de Varzim 0.4%🇩🇪 Rüsselsheim am Main 0.4%St Albans🇩🇪 Trier 0.4%🇮🇹 Turin 0.4%🇦🇹 Wels 0.4%🇨🇭 Wettingen 0.4%
Shops open on Sunday% of retail 91.8% 80 of 1,704 🇸🇪 Örebro 92%🇦🇷 Resistencia 91.9%🇵🇭 Bamban 91.8%🇨🇦 Maple Ridge 91.8%St Albans🇮🇹 Acireale 91.7%🇬🇧 Aylesbury 91.7%🇫🇮 Joensuu 91.7%🇺🇸 Olympia 91.7%

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