Places
Frost dates by country
1,801 places across 149 countries, each one computed from its own temperature record rather than interpolated from a neighbour.
Places computed
1,801
Each with its own last frost, first frost and growing-season length.
Countries covered
149
Both hemispheres, on one method and one scale.
Widest coverage
China
354 places, against an average of about 12 per country.
A
B
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D
E
F
G
H
I
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K
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M
N
O
P
Q
R
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Y
Z
What is on a country page
Follow any country above and you get every town in it that has been computed, listed largest first, with three dates against each one: the median last spring frost, the median first autumn frost, and the number of frost-free days between them. Where a country spans enough ground for those dates to differ — and most do — the page opens with the spread: the earliest and latest last frost in the country, the shortest and longest growing season, and the range of hardiness zones.
The town pages underneath go further. Each one carries the full distribution rather than a single date, so you can see the difference between a date that holds nine years in ten and one that holds in half of them, along with the earliest and latest frost ever recorded there and a planting calendar for every crop in the database.
Why the numbers are comparable
Every place on this site is computed the same way, from the same source, over the same span of years. That matters more than it sounds. Published frost dates are usually national: one country's tables use a different reference period from its neighbour's, a different temperature threshold, or a different definition of what counts as a frost. Comparing them tells you as much about the two agencies as about the two climates.
Here a date in Chile and a date in Finland come out of one calculation, so the comparison is real. The method page sets out the source, the thresholds and the percentile arithmetic in full.
One caveat worth carrying with you: south of the equator the growing year starts in July, so a “last frost” there falls in September or October rather than April. Season lengths and hardiness zones compare cleanly across the equator. Bare dates do not.
If your country is not listed
Coverage follows population, not politics: the index is built from towns above a size threshold, so a small country may appear with a single entry and a large one with dozens. If yours is missing, or your own town is, the nearest computed place is usually close enough to plant by — frost dates shift with elevation and shelter far more than they shift over a few tens of kilometres of flat ground.
Search accepts a town name in any spelling it can recognise and will offer the nearest matches. Tell us if somewhere obvious is absent.