Experience the Midnight Sun

Every summer in Norway’s Arctic, a phenomenon occurs where the sun never sets below the horizon, even at midnight. Learn more about the Arctic summer daylight that can last up to four months.

What is the Midnight Sun?

Norway is well-known for its long summer days, but above the Arctic Circle, the days aren’t just long – they’re unending. As night falls over the south of the country, in northern Norway the sun lingers, and it can be seen crossing the sky throughout the night.

This natural phenomenon has many names – “Polar Day”, “White Night”, “Nightless Night” – but the most common is the “Midnight Sun”.

Why does the Midnight Sun occur?

As the Earth travels around the sun, we experience different seasons. Because the Earth also rotates on its own axis, we experience day and night. However, the Earth is tilted on its axis by 23.4 degrees, meaning that one hemisphere is always closer to the sun than the other. This is why we have opposite seasons in the northern and southern hemispheres.

During summer in the northern hemisphere, the North Pole is tilted towards the sun. As the Earth turns, the Polar Region stays facing the sun, and the North Pole itself doesn’t experience darkness for six whole months. Arctic areas just south of the pole also experience the Midnight Sun, but for shorter lengths of time. The effect is diluted further south, and instead of the golden nights of the Arctic summer, places south of the Arctic Circle simply see longer days. Areas close to the Equator experience very little change in daylight hours between the seasons.

Once summer is over, the sun sets over the Polar Region for the first time in months. This sunset will send the North Pole into six months of darkness, while other parts of the Arctic will experience both day and night for some months, before entering Polar Night during the winter.

Where can you see the Midnight Sun?

During summer, the Midnight Sun can be seen anywhere north of the Arctic Circle, an abstract geographic line that spans Sweden, Finland, Russia, Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and, of course, the Land of the Midnight Sun itself, Norway.

This celestial event extends longer the farther north you go. In Norway’s Svalbard archipelago—a crown of islands in the High Arctic—the sun remains visible 24 hours a day from late April to late August, giving locals over four months of constant sunlight. While the northern hemisphere’s summer solstice occurs on June 21, the endless days continue above the Arctic Circle throughout the summer months. Most regions in Norway that experience the Midnight Sun do so from mid-May to mid-July.

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