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Europe is live on SunsetMap

· 2 min read
Zak Watts
Zak Watts
Developer @ SunsetMap

Europe is done.

The whole continent — Dolomites, Pyrenees, Scottish Highlands, Norwegian fjords, every coastline and clifftop in between — is now mapped on SunsetMap. Wherever you are, there should be a decent spot near you to go and watch the sun drop.

This is the biggest milestone for the project so far, so I want to talk about what it took, what I learned, and what's next.

Europe coverage

Above: SunsetMap coverage now spans all of Europe. Yellow - Purple areas show where good sunset spots are likely to be!

What "complete" actually means​

I analysed over 2.5 billion points across roughly 6 million km² of European terrain. My machine ran for 30+ hours to crunch it, and that was after several rounds of rewrites to get the pipeline scaling properly.

The base layer is the Copernicus Digital Elevation Model, a free, global elevation dataset. On top of that I run my own logic to figure out where the horizon opens up, where the light hits cleanly, and where you're most likely to get a view worth showing up for.

With Europe done, I'm now covering 1/5 of the world. Which sounds like a lot until you realise how much is left and I'm not stopping until I've mapped the whole planet.

The hard part wasn't the maths​

Honestly, the maths was the easy bit. The hard part was scale. Going from "this works on a single mountain range" to "this works across an entire continent" is a different problem. Memory blows up. Disk fills. Queries that took milliseconds suddenly take minutes.

A lot of this build has been about getting better at handling data and understanding where the limitations lie within existing infrastructure. Not glamorous, but it's where the real work was. If the project has taught me anything, it's that with enough ambition, stubbornness, and AI assistance you can claw your way through some of the most complex technical challenges.

How you can help​

If this is your kind of thing:

  • Use it. Go find a spot.
  • Sign up to the newsletter for what's coming next.
  • Share it with someone who'd love it.
  • Tell me what's missing: regions, features, spots, anything.

Now go outside and enjoy the sun! I'm going to do the same.