World Cities by Climate Type

Though cities may be thousands of miles apart or even on different continents, they can share very similar climates to one another. In this graphic, world cities are grouped according to their Köppen classification zone, a way to categorize Earth’s climactic regions based on annualtemperatures and seasonal precipitation. Devised by climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1884, the system divides Earth’s varying climates into five main groups which further divide into many smaller groups. This chart lists the five most populous cities (over 1 million) for each zone. Every city on Earth has a zone, but not every zone has a city. Some zones have less than five major cities and the polar zone has none. The United States is unique because it contains the most zones of any country. The lower chart maps U.S. city climate doppelgangers around the world.