Of course, everyone is saturated with heat waves and repeated heat waves but, over the course of a year, in which city in France are we guaranteed to find the sun?
Although we would like to end the heatwave, that doesn’t mean we want to be deprived of the sun! While residents of the South of France are lucky enough to enjoy it almost all year round, which city is the sunniest? Surprisingly, it is neither in Marseille nor in Nice…
This is what emerges from the latest study carried out by Holiduthe vacation rental platform, which unveiled its ranking of the sunniest French cities in 2026. Unsurprisingly, the ranking is obviously dominated by cities in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region. The one which every summer (and even from spring break) is full of vacationers. “From Var to Bouches-du-Rhône via the Alpes-Maritimes, the region holds 19 of the 20 places in the annual ranking” !
On the third step of the podium, we find Martigues with 265.49 hours of average sunshine per month. Then, second place is occupied by the famous commune of Saint-Raphaël with a score of 266.21 hours. And the gold medal? The sunniest city in France is Fréjus, which wins by a hair with 266.25 hours of sunshine per month, or 11 days! As a reminder, as the study highlights, the 3rd city of Var in terms of population (around 59,000 inhabitants) had already topped the rankings in 2024.
And in the rest of the ranking? “Perpignan, the only representative of Occitanie, continues to challenge Provençal domination by taking 19th place with 256.22 hours of sunshine per month“, specifies the team of Holidu. As for the city which brings up the rear, it is Avignon with 253.77 hours of sunshine.
However, in the “record” category, you have to go thousands of kilometers from France to find the sunniest city in the world. According to the World Meteorological Organization’s sunshine index, a city exceeds 4,000 hours of sunshine per year and sits at the top: it is the city of Yuma, in the state of Arizona, in the United States.
