Germany canyon rim
Porta Westfalica
You can see 52 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 52 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).
- 52 kmFarthest ridgelooking west
- 84%Open horizonof the circle where the horizon is below your eyes
- 21Peaks in viewnamed summits that rise above the relief in front
- 76 mAltitudeabove the sea, at the highest point of the viewpoint
The 21 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 in April.
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.
- Jansouth-west10 min before the sea-level sunset19%
- Febwest6 min before the sea-level sunset24%
- Marwest14 min before the sea-level sunset30%
- Aprwest56 min before the sea-level sunset37%
- Maynorth-west30 min before the sea-level sunset32%
- Junnorth-west18 min before the sea-level sunset29%
- Julnorth-west26 min before the sea-level sunset31%
- Augwest46 min before the sea-level sunset32%
- Sepwest30 min before the sea-level sunset33%
- Octwest6 min before the sea-level sunset29%
- Novsouth-west8 min before the sea-level sunset22%
- Decsouth-west10 min before the sea-level sunset19%
- 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
Porta Westfalica.
Valley in Minden-Lübbecke District, Germany
Porta Westfalica is a canyon rim in Germany, 76 m above the sea.
On a clear day the farthest ridge you can see is 52 km away, looking west.
21 named peaks rise above the relief in front; the most prominent is Hengeberg (316 m), 41 km away.
The horizon is open, below your eyes, over 84% of the circle.
The skies are clearest in April.

Get there and stay
- Wohnmobilstellplatz Porta-Badcampsite · 2.2 km · 23 within 10 km
- Ratsklauseplace to stay · 3.5 km · 117 within 10 km
- Porta Westfalicanearest town · 1.6 km in a straight linePlaces to stay in Porta WestfalicaBooking.com · sponsored link↗
- Hannover Airport (HAJ)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 57 km in a straight lineCar hire at HAJ airport (Hannover)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
- 19other viewpoints within 5 kmPortakanzel, Silberblick, Moltketurm and 16 more
- 11named peaks within 5 kmWittekindsberg, Jakobsberg, Häverstädter Berg and 8 more
- 22marked trails within 3 kmX2 Burgensteig, Sigwardsweg, Weserweg and 19 more
- 22shelters and huts within 5 km
- 248car parks within 3 km
- 1visitor centres within 5 kmLWL-Besucherzentrum
- 25restaurants and cafés within 3 km
- 23campsites within 10 kmWohnmobilstellplatz Porta-Bad, Großer Weserbogen, KSC Porta and 20 more
- 117places to stay within 10 kmRatsklause, Lindgart Hotel, Hotel Restaurant WeserSchiffchen and 114 more
- cable car and funicular stations within 5 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 Porta Westfalica, and what is near.
Everything around this viewpoint — mountains, water, forests, birds, caves and the night sky — in the family's atlases.
Figures 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 (Q451010) · 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, Lakeyas, Forestyas, Birdyas, Canyonyas, Riveryas |
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.






