Sunset and sunrise times in Porto-Novo, Benin

Sitting on the western side of its time zone puts solar noon at 12:51, a full 52 minutes after twelve o'clock, and drags the whole day — sunrise, noon and sunset — along with it.

Light lingers for 21 minutes after sunset before civil twilight ends — 3 minutes shorter than the 24-minute median across tracked cities, which is what 6.5°N buys you.

Over a year the sunset point slides 47° along the horizon, from WSW at the December solstice to WNW in June. Today it is W.

Across August the sunset moves 11 minutes earlier, averaging about 21 seconds a day.

Of the 6 Benin cities tracked here, this one sees the earliest sunset today — 3 minutes apart from Abomey at the other end of the country.

Twice a year the sun passes directly overhead here — on 6 April and 6 September — and vertical objects cast almost no shadow at solar noon. The next one is in 12 days.

At 6.5° the seasons barely touch the clock: 45 minutes separate midsummer from midwinter, against roughly 8.8 hours in London.

The times barely move this week: the longest day of the year falls on 21 June, 2 months ago, so day length is changing by under a minute a day. Sunset shifts just 7 minutes earlier over the next fortnight.