I personally love the map above, partly because it includes my hometown.
It shows the temperature difference between the lowest lows in winter and highest highs in summer of each country’s capital city.
Growing up I was always told that Canada had the second coldest capital city in the world after Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, but after Kazakhstan moved it’s capital to Astana from Almaty it looks Ottawa has fallen into third place.
Here are the top 5 with the biggest differences:
| City | Country | Range | Hottest month | Coldest month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ulaanbaatar | Mongolia | 50.4C (90.72F) | 24.5C (76.1F) | -25.9C (-14.6F) |
| Astana | Kazakhstan | 45.3C (81.54F) | 26.8C (80.2F) | -18.5C (-1.3F) |
| Yerevan | Armenia | 41.2C (74.16F) | 33.7C (92.7F) | -7.5C (18.5F) |
| Ottawa | Canada | 41C (73.8F) | 26.6C (79.9F) | -14.4C (6.1F) |
| Pyongyang | North Korea | 40C (72F) | 29.2C (84.6F) | -10.8C (12.6F) |
And it should be noted that: “These are monthly averages. So for most cities in the northern hemisphere, I used the average low for January/February and average high for July/August.”
So not the biggest differences in temperature ever recorded, which I actually think would make for a cooler map.
It’s also wild to me that some countries have capital cities that vary less than 10C in a year on average.
Where are the coldest and hottest places you’ve ever been:
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