Horizontal dials

Pajala (Sweden)

Pajala is located 10 km (6 ml) from the Finnish border and 70 km (45 ml) north of the Arctic Circle. The time scale should therefore show all 24 hours. The dial reads local time.

The diameter is 38.33 m (126 ft), which made it at some time the largest dial in the world. The height of the pole style is not given. The steep tilt of the style is a constructive advantage, of course.

The shape of the dial face is described as a "round square". One wonders whether this is perhaps a 'super-circle', the circular version of the super-ellipse advocated by the Danish physicist Piet Hein.

A 'sun wheel' is laid in the dial face, forming a cross in the circle. Water bubbles up from four sources corresponding to the four principal points of the compass and gathers in the central pond. It reminds us of "the significance of sunlight for all life by functioning as a biological clock in a world fettered by artificial time."

The website claims that this is the largest sundial in the world, as authorized by the Guinness Book of Records. Maybe the claim has been superseded by now; see Lloydminster (Canada).

Website: Pajala Tourist
Location: 67.2° N, 23.3° E
Design: Mats Winsa
Inauguration: July 1996