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ChronoClockTime intelligence

Countdown

Time until Sunday

The next Sunday, when least of the world is open for business.

Counting down to Sunday

the next Sunday
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Midnight at the start of the next Sunday

Counting from your device clock.

What is Sunday?

The countdown above runs to the midnight where Saturday ends and Sunday begins where you are. Sunday is the day the week is least able to agree about: the United States, Canada and Japan treat it as the first day, while ISO 8601 and most of Europe put it last, and across much of the Middle East and parts of South Asia it is a working day because the weekend fell on the Friday. None of that changes the midnight, only what the day is called once it arrives.

Sunday is the quietest day of the week for services almost everywhere, which is usually why anyone is counting towards it. Shops in Germany, Austria and Norway are closed by law apart from narrow exceptions for bakeries, petrol stations and station concourses. Railways in Britain and much of Europe use the day for engineering work, so a Sunday journey is worth checking against a timetable rather than assumed from the weekday one. Deliveries fall to a handful of carriers. The practical effect is that Sunday suits anything that needs uninterrupted hours and suits nothing that needs another organisation to answer.

In Israel, Egypt and much of the Gulf this is the first working day of the week, so a Sunday message from Tel Aviv or Cairo reaches a European desk that is closed, and the same happens in reverse every Friday. Britain keeps a roast lunch and a separate set of Sunday newspapers with their own staff and deadlines. Argentina gives the day to a long family asado. American professional football concentrates almost its whole season into Sunday afternoons and evenings. The common thread is that the day was set aside for worship first and everything else arranged itself around the gap.

The next one falls on the next Sunday, and this page counts down to the midnight that starts it in whatever time zone your browser reports.

From the day of the sun to the Lord's day

The English name is a straight translation of the Latin dies Solis, the day of the sun, which the Romans had in turn taken from a Greek naming of the planetary week. Old English and Old High German both rendered it literally, which is why German still has Sonntag. Christianity later attached its own meaning to the same day without changing the northern names, so English kept the sun and much of southern Europe did not.

The Romance languages replaced it with the Lord's day: Latin dies Dominica gave Spanish and Portuguese domingo, Italian domenica and French dimanche. Greek uses Kyriaki with the same sense. Russian went further again and calls the day voskresenye, meaning resurrection, while its word for Monday means the day after the one with no work. Arabic and Hebrew simply number the days, so Sunday is the first in both. Constantine made it a day of rest across the Roman empire in 321, and the trading laws that still close shops in parts of Europe are the distant descendants of that decision.

Frequently asked questions

How is this countdown calculated?

The target is midnight at the start of the next Sunday, read in your device's own time zone. Today counts, so opening this on a Sunday reads zero rather than seven, and the figure steps down at your own midnight rather than at the hour you arrived.

Why does American football own the Sunday?

A federal law of 1961 let the professional leagues sell their television rights as one package, and the price of it was a clause protecting school and college football: the NFL may not broadcast on Friday evenings or on Saturdays through the autumn. That left the Sunday, and the afternoon and evening slots have been built out from it ever since. College football keeps the Saturday and school games keep the Friday night, so the three levels rarely compete for the same audience.

How do Britain's Sunday trading rules actually work?

The Sunday Trading Act 1994 covers England and Wales and catches shops with a floor area above 280 square metres, which may open for six continuous hours between ten in the morning and six in the evening. Anything smaller is unrestricted, which is why a corner shop can trade all day while the supermarket down the road cannot. Scotland was never brought under the Act and Northern Ireland works to rules of its own. The limit was lifted for eight Sundays around the 2012 Olympics and has survived attempts to relax it permanently since.

Why do trains so often run differently on a Sunday?

Engineering work is booked into the period with the fewest passengers, and in Britain and much of Europe that is the Sunday. Lines close for maintenance, replacement buses appear, and first departures are usually later than on a weekday. A Sunday timetable is a separate timetable rather than a thinned version of the weekday one, so the sensible habit is to look it up on the day you travel.