The Hottest Place In The World Is 122 Degrees

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Sep 23, 11:50AM EDT · Published Aug 2, 7:03AM EDT

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The Hottest Place In The World Is 122 Degrees — © Tomwang112 / iStock

People can barely live in temperatures above 110 degrees F, let alone at 120 degrees F. The human body cannot cool itself rapidly enough to offset the damage of high temperatures. Some people suffer seizures and can lose consciousness. While these symptoms do not hit all of the population in extremely hot weather, they are a major risk. That people can live at these temperatures day after day is amazing.

Most of the world’s hottest temperatures are found across northern Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Iraq. The 15 hottest places in the world today are in Iraq, where a large part of the country suffers under 110-degree weather. These conditions are rare in the U.S., even in the hottest large cities of Phoenix and Las Vegas.

The hottest place in the world today is Al Najaf International Airport, directly next to the city in Iraq that it serves. It is 122 degrees F there now.

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Najaf is in the central part of Iraq. The region has a population of more than 600,000 people. The monthly average high temperature from June to September is over 100 degrees. It rarely drops below 85 degrees at night. Over the course of this period, there is often no rain at all.

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Because of infrastructure problems, electricity to the area is unreliable. That means air conditioning is as well. These high temperatures are sometimes accompanied by sandstorms, which makes the areas even more hostile to humans. Some residents cannot breathe because of the poor air quality.

Over the course of the next several years, as temperatures across the world continue to rise in most places, Najaf may not be habitable at all.

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What about the U.S.? The Guardian recently reported that the level of heat in the Middle East will not be unusual in America by 2100, which is, obviously, but horribly, only a lifetime away for young children. In another Guardian article, the author pointed out that climate change could lead to an unexplored risk or human extinction. Too extreme a point of view? Maybe not.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.