The sun and the clock in Edinburgh (2026)
Edinburgh lies at 3.2°W. Its time zone, UTC+0, is built around the prime meridian (0°). The 3.2° gap between them means the clock runs roughly 13 minutes ahead of the sun: solar noon arrives at about 12:13 rather than 12:00. Under daylight saving the clocks move 60 minutes forward, widening the gap to 73 minutes and pushing solar noon to 13:13.
The longest day of 2026 is 22 June, with 17h 37m of daylight. The shortest is 22 December, with 6h 58m. The swing between them is 10h 39m. Close to the Arctic or Antarctic circle, the year swings hard between long light and long dark.
The earliest sunrise and the latest sunset do not land on the longest day. In Edinburgh the sun comes up earliest on 19 June at 04:26, while the latest sunset waits until 25 June at 22:03. The equation of time is what separates them: the Earth's elliptical orbit and axial tilt move solar noon back and forth by several minutes over the year.
The sky stays usably light for a while after the sun goes down. In Edinburgh that civil twilight runs about 37 minutes at the equinox, stretching to 63 minutes at the solstice.
Every figure in this section is computed from the city's own latitude, longitude and IANA time zone using NOAA solar algorithms (Spencer, 1971), accurate to about ±2 arcminutes below 65° latitude.
