What this map shows
Colours show the long-term mean wind speed 100 metres above ground from the Global Wind Atlas (DTU and the World Bank). The atlas downscales global reanalysis weather data to a fine grid with a micro-scale flow model that accounts for terrain and surface roughness, which is why ridges, coastlines and mountain passes appear as bright streaks while forests and valleys are dark. Coverage includes land and a coastal band offshore; the open ocean is left blank.
Hover to read the speed, an estimate of the wind power density and the approximate capacity factor a modern 3.6 MW onshore turbine would achieve there. Click any point to open the wind turbine calculator for that location, or the Energy Explorer for a full solar-and-wind profile.
How to read wind speeds
| Mean speed at 100 m | Power density | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| < 4 m/s | < 70 W/m² | Poor: equatorial forests, sheltered valleys, much of South-East Asia |
| 4–5.5 m/s | 70–200 W/m² | Marginal: only for very tall low-wind turbines with cheap finance |
| 5.5–7 m/s | 200–400 W/m² | Fair to good: much of inland Europe, the US Midwest, India’s south-west |
| 7–8.5 m/s | 400–700 W/m² | Good: coasts of north-western Europe, Great Plains, Inner Mongolia |
| > 8.5 m/s | > 700 W/m² | Excellent: Patagonia, Scottish uplands, offshore North Sea, Horn of Africa |
Power density grows with the cube of speed, so small differences on the map matter a lot: moving from 6 to 7.5 m/s nearly doubles the energy available. That is why developers obsess over hilltops and coastlines, and why offshore wind, with steadier and stronger winds, reaches capacity factors of 40–55%.
Patterns worth noticing
The strongest winds sit in the mid-latitude westerlies (40–60° north and south): Patagonia is the standout on land, with large areas above 9–10 m/s. Trade winds create excellent pockets in north-eastern Brazil, the Caribbean, the Horn of Africa and the western Sahara coasts. Terrain channelling produces famous corridors such as the Gulf of Suez, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mexico and the Columbia River Gorge. Ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica show extreme katabatic winds but are irrelevant for development. The great calm zones (the Congo and Amazon basins and Indonesia) explain why wind power is rare near the equator.
From map to turbine
The map is a screening tool. Turbine output depends on the full speed distribution, air density (lower at altitude and in hot climates), turbulence and obstacles. For a household turbine, remember that speeds at 10–20 m in a garden are far lower than the 100 m values here. Use the wind speed at height calculator first, then the wind turbine calculator, which estimates annual energy and payback using NASA wind data for your exact location. To see which countries already rely on wind, play the wind share time-lapse, or find individual wind farms in the solar & wind farms atlas.
Data and licence
Source: Global Wind Atlas 3, a free web-based application developed, owned and operated by the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) in partnership with the World Bank Group, using data provided by Vortex and funded by ESMAP. Licensed CC BY 4.0. We recoloured the 100 m mean wind speed layer, resampled it to Web Mercator tiles (about 4–5 km at maximum zoom) and quantised it for the hover read-out; values are approximate and smoothed compared with the original 250 m data.