The path, from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean
The Moon’s shadow touches the Earth at sunrise in the Atlantic, west of the Strait of Gibraltar. It reaches land at Cádiz and Tangier at the same time, in the middle of the morning, with the Sun 38° high. It then runs along the whole North African coast, crosses Egypt along the Nile valley, where the Sun stands almost overhead, passes over the Red Sea to Jeddah and Mecca, cuts through the south-west of Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and leaves the continent at the Horn of Africa.
The greatest eclipse happens at 10:06:34 Universal Time, at 25.5° N, 33.2° E, about 60 km south-east of Luxor. There the Sun is 82° above the horizon and the shadow is 258 km wide.
How to use the map
The red band is the path of totality. Inside it the Sun disappears completely; outside it the eclipse is partial, however close you are. The dashed line is the centre line, where totality lasts longest, and the small figures along it give the Universal Time at which the shadow passes.
Click anywhere on the map, choose a city from the list or share your position. The panel gives the type of eclipse, the duration, the four contact times in local time and the height of the Sun at each of them. The table lower down lists the main cities on and near the path, each with its own page.
Choosing where to watch
- Duration. The centre line gives the longest show. Halfway to the edge you still keep about 85% of the maximum.
- Weather. In August the sky over Egypt, Libya and western Saudi Arabia is almost always clear. The two shores of the Strait of Gibraltar see more low cloud and sea mist in the morning. Heat is the price of the clear sky: over 40 °C in Luxor at midday.
- Access. Southern Spain is the easy option for most Europeans, with a shorter totality and a lower Sun. Luxor offers the longest totality on Earth, among the temples of Karnak and the Valley of the Kings.
How the figures are computed
Contact times come from the positions of the Sun and the Moon as seen from the exact point you choose. Durations use a lunar radius slightly smaller than the average, the convention of the NASA eclipse canons, to allow for the valleys on the Moon’s edge. Our maximum, 6 min 23 s, matches the published value. Expect differences of a second or two with tables that model the lunar mountains one by one.
Questions and answers
Where can I see the total solar eclipse of 2 August 2027?
Inside a band about 258 km wide that crosses the south of Spain (Cádiz, Málaga), Gibraltar, Ceuta and Melilla, northern Morocco (Tangier, Tétouan), Algeria (Oran), Tunisia (Sfax, Gabès), Libya (Benghazi), Egypt (Luxor, Asyut), Saudi Arabia (Jeddah, Mecca), Yemen and the tip of Somalia. Everywhere else in Europe, Africa and the Middle East the eclipse is partial.
How long does totality last?
Up to 6 minutes 23 seconds on the centre line near Luxor, in Egypt. It lasts 4 min 50 s in Tangier, 2 min 48 s in Cádiz and 1 min 40 s in Málaga. The duration falls quickly toward the edges of the band: pick your town on the map to get its exact figure.
What time is the eclipse?
Totality reaches the Spanish coast around 10:45 in the morning local time, Tunisia around 10:10, Luxor at 1:02 pm and Jeddah at 1:22 pm. The partial phase begins more than an hour earlier and ends more than an hour later.
Is the eclipse total in Madrid, Barcelona, Seville or Lisbon?
No. Seville misses the band by a few dozen kilometres, with 98% of the Sun covered. The Moon covers 86% of the Sun in Madrid, 82% in Barcelona and 92% in Lisbon. Even 99% is not totality: the sky stays bright and the corona stays hidden.
Why is this eclipse so long?
Three things line up. The Moon is near perigee, so its disc is large. The Earth is near aphelion, so the Sun's disc is small. And the shadow falls close to the tropics around local noon, where the ground moves fastest in the same direction as the shadow.
When is the next eclipse this long?
No total eclipse will be longer until 3 June 2114. The only longer one this century, on 22 July 2009, reached 6 min 39 s, almost entirely over the Pacific Ocean.
Updated November 11, 2026