City lights iPhone wallpapers
Cities at night, seen from 400 km up, and the fireworks of Edo-period Tokyo.
Fireworks over Ryogoku bridge
Fireworks at Ikenohata
Gold grid from orbit
City web at night
White lights, straight roads
A coastline drawn in sodium
Valley of lights
Night spiral
Blue hour from the station
Rivers through the lights
Most of these were taken by astronauts aboard the International Space Station, with a handheld camera pressed to a window as the station crossed the night side of Earth. Street grids glow sodium orange, newer LED districts glow white, and rivers and coastlines show up as dark shapes cut out of the light. NASA photographs are in the public domain.
The two woodblock prints are city lights from before electricity: fireworks over the Sumida River at Ryogoku, by Hiroshige, and at Ikenohata, by Kobayashi Kiyochika. Dark wallpapers like these also suit OLED screens, where the black areas cost almost nothing to display.