How far do you have to drive to escape light pollution?

Published by 2pm.ninja. Last updated 8 October 2026.

It depends on the city, and on the direction you leave it. A city's glow does not spread evenly. Two roads of the same length can end in very different skies.

So the darkness band you reach matters more than raw distance. The table below shows how much cities differ.

How far from a dark sky

Select a figure to open the map with that distance shown.

How we measured

• Cities. The first city of each country in the UN's 2025 list of the world's 100 largest, until we had 25 countries (World Urbanization Prospects 2025, CC BY 3.0 IGO).
• Centers. Each city's coordinate on Wikidata.
• Dark sky area. A spot on land that the map shows as "Dark sky" or "Very dark sky", inside a dark area at least 5 km across. Open water and small dark patches do not count.
• Rounding. Anything closer than 5 km reads "under 5 km".
• Data. The 2025 annual satellite composite from the Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines (CC BY 4.0). On 8 October 2026, the map used the same data.

What the table does not tell you

• The distance can cross water or a border.
• It goes to the nearest dark area in any direction, not along a route. It says nothing about roads or whether you can get there.
• It counts light given off at that spot, not how dark the sky looks there. A nearby city's glow can still brighten the sky.
• It comes from a yearly average, not from any one night.

The six darkness bands

Star Ninja's map colors every spot on Earth by measured sky brightness, in six named bands:

• Very dark sky — up to 0.25 nW/cm²/sr
• Dark sky — up to 1 nW/cm²/sr
• Rural — up to 3 nW/cm²/sr
• Suburban — up to 10 nW/cm²/sr
• Bright suburban / urban fringe — up to 30 nW/cm²/sr
• Urban / heavily light-polluted — above 30 nW/cm²/sr

Higher numbers mean more artificial light reaching the sky, and fewer stars you can see. "Very dark sky" is where the Milky Way shows clearly. "Urban" is a city center, where only the brightest planets and stars cut through.

These are approximate radiance bands, not a Bortle or SQM class. They come from measured satellite data, not a guess.

An honest distance method

Set a start point on the map — your home, or wherever you're leaving from. Click any spot you're considering. The panel shows two numbers: the straight-line distance in kilometers, and an approximate drive figure.

The approximate drive figure is a straight-line distance divided by a flat 70 km/h. It is not a routed estimate — no roads, no traffic, no turns. Treat it as a rough guide, and check a real map before you commit to a route.

Check your own start point

The table gives examples, and your city may not be in it. On the map, set your start point and click spots in every direction. Each spot shows its darkness band and its straight-line distance from your start.

Open the map and try a few directions out of your own town. If you want a walkthrough of what each reading on the panel means, see how to read the dark-sky map.