How far do you have to drive to reach a genuinely dark sky?

For the largest city in every US state, we found the nearest DarkSky-certified place: a Park, Reserve, or Sanctuary. And we measured the drive. As the cities around us grow larger and light pollution becomes more common, that drive keeps getting longer than most people expect.

Aurora Borealis above Reinefjord in the Lofoten Islands

The average major US city's drive to find a dark sky

0.0hrs

A simple average across the largest metro area in each of the lower-48 states and DC (49 cities).

Median 3.6 hrs · Distance 220 miles · Range 0.9–8.2 hrs

The US figure covers the lower-48 states and DC; Alaska and Hawaii have no certified dark places in our source list.

Every drive is a real road distance, routed city-centre to the nearest certified dark place.

The Index

Each state, ranked by the drive

Each track runs from city-glow amber to aurora – the longer the amber, the further you drive before you reach a certified dark sky. Sort any column or search by state abbreviation or place name.

#	Origin	Nearest dark sky	Drive	Time

Data & Licensing

Sources

Certified places are the spine; VIIRS is the darkness check; the World Atlas adds national-scale context.

DarkSky International — certified places (North America, 126)darksky.org · designations through 2026

PUBLIC LISTING

VIIRS Day/Night Band annual radiance (VNL V2, 2022)Earth Observation Group · Colorado School of Mines

PUBLIC DOMAIN

World Atlas of Artificial Night Sky BrightnessFalchi et al., 2016 · Science Advances · national dark-sky context

CC BY-NC

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