France volcano
Mehetia
You can see 156 km from here, looking west.
Calculating the panorama…
Drag to turn around. The relief is drawn 2.2 times taller so the ridges can be read; far ridges are paler, as in the real air.
The view
Up to 156 km away.
Calculated on the relief one degree at a time, up to 250 km, with the curvature of the Earth and the refraction of the air: what stands above the horizon from here.
Our own rating, from the relief and the climate only: open horizon (35 points), how far you see (25), sea and named peaks in view (20) and clear months (20).
- 156 kmFarthest ridgelooking west
- 100%Open horizonof the circle where the horizon is below your eyes
- 85%Seaof the circle where the horizon is the sea
- 2Peaks in viewnamed summits that rise above the relief in front
- 390 mAltitudeabove the sea, at the highest point of the viewpoint
The 2 peaks you can name from here
From west to east as you turn around: height, distance and direction. Each one links to its guide on Peakyas, our mountain atlas.
From the relief only: buildings, trees and haze are not in the model. On a hazy day you see much less; 250 km is the limit of our calculation.
The sun
The best sunsets are from June to September.
When the sun really disappears from this viewpoint — behind the relief or into the sea — and in which direction, on the 15th of each month, in local time.
- Janwestsets on an open horizon31%
- Febwestsets on an open horizon33%
- Marwest2 min before the sea-level sunset41%
- Aprwest2 min before the sea-level sunset41%
- Maywest2 min before the sea-level sunset43%
- Junnorth-west2 min before the sea-level sunset46%
- Julwest2 min before the sea-level sunset47%
- Augwestsets on an open horizon47%
- Sepwest2 min before the sea-level sunset46%
- Octwest2 min before the sea-level sunset42%
- Novwestsets on an open horizon38%
- Decsouth-west2 min before the sea-level sunset31%
- Time: when the sun goes behind the horizon you see from here.
- Minutes: how much earlier the relief hides the sun.
- %: share of clear sky that month (NASA, 2001–2020).
The highlighted months are the clearest. Golden hour starts about an hour before.
The place
Mehetia.
Island in French Polynesia
Mehetia is a volcano in France, 390 m above the sea.
On a clear day the farthest ridge you can see is 156 km away, looking west.
The sea fills 85% of the horizon.
2 named peaks rise above the relief in front; the most prominent is Mehetia (435 m), 1 km away.
The horizon is open, below your eyes, over 100% of the circle.
The skies are clearest from June to September.
Get there and stay
- Fa'a'ā International Airport (PPT)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 167 km in a straight lineCar hire at BES airport (Brest)Discover Cars · sponsored link↗
Plan the visit
A guided tour, a bed nearby, a car.
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
From above
The viewpoint and its surroundings.
The satellite image of the 6 × 6 km around the viewpoint, with what OpenStreetMap shows nearby.
Around, in OpenStreetMap
- other viewpoints within 5 km
- named peaks within 5 km
- cable car and funicular stations within 5 km
- marked trails within 3 km
- shelters and huts within 5 km
- car parks within 3 km
- visitor centres within 5 km
- restaurants and cafés within 3 km
- campsites within 10 km
- places to stay within 10 km
Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit. A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet.
In our other atlases
What you see from Mehetia, and what is near.
Everything around this viewpoint — mountains, water, forests, birds, caves and the night sky — in the family's atlases.
Peakyas1 mountains within 25 kmFigures from the sister sites' databases (Wikidata, HydroATLAS, GeoNames, OpenStreetMap, GBIF). Links open when each site is online.
Photographs
The view, as people saw it.
Where these figures come from
| Name and type | Wikidata (Q1340711) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| Sun | J. Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms |
| Peaks in view | Peakyas (Wikidata, CC0) |
| Panorama and altitude | Copernicus DEM GLO-90 / GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA |
| Clouds | NASA POWER (CERES SYN1deg, 2001–2020; MERRA-2) |
| What is around | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
| Sister atlases | Peakyas, Darkskyas |
Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.
The family
Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers, canyons, caves, dark skies, viewpoints, birdwatching or forests?
Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, in seven languages.
beaches
Find your beach: sea temperature, sun and swimming month by month.Visit 
lakes
Every lake on Earth: water temperature, ice, depth and the shore.Visit mountains
Every summit in 3D: summit weather, the 0 °C line, huts and trails.Visit 
waterfalls
Every waterfall: height, flow month by month and when it roars.Visit 
islands
Every island from the sea up: size, sea temperature, ferries and 3D.Visit 
rivers
Every river from source to sea: the journey, the flow and the basin in numbers.Visit 
canyons
Every canyon cut to scale: depth to the floor, rim and floor temperatures, trails and viewpoints.Visit 
caves
Every cave with its real depth and length: the rock above, the temperature inside all year, and how to visit.Visit 
dark skies
Where the night is still dark: the sky of every place, the Milky Way month by month, the Moon, eclipses and auroras.Visit 
viewpoints
Every viewpoint with its real 360° panorama: the peaks you can name, how far you see and where the sun sets.You are here
birdwatching
Every bird sanctuary and wetland with the species recorded month by month: who is resident, who comes for the summer, who only passes through.Visit 
forests
Every forest with its land-cover rings, what grows and lives in it, and the best months to walk it.Visit