Hong Kong Time (abbreviation: HKT; ) is the time in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

, observed at UTC+08:00 all year round. The

Hong Kong Observatory The Hong Kong Observatory is a weather forecast agency of the government of Hong Kong. The Observatory forecasts the weather and issues warnings on weather-related hazards. It also monitors and makes assessments on radiation levels in ...

is the official

timekeeper A timekeeper is an instrument or person that measures the passage of time. Person A timekeeper is a person who measures time with the assistance of a clock or a stopwatch. In addition, a timekeeper records time, time taken, or time remaining duri ...

of the Hong Kong Time. It is indicated as Asia/Hong_Kong in the

IANA time zone database The tz database is a collaborative compilation of information about the world's time zones, primarily intended for use with computer programs and operating systems. Paul Eggert is its current editor and maintainer, with the organizational backi ...

Time standards

, Hong Kong Time is defined in the Interpretation and General Clauses Ordinance (Cap 1), Laws of Hong Kong. Section 67(2) of the Ordinance states that:

"Hong Kong Time" () means the time used for general purposes throughout Hong Kong namely, 8 hours, or such other period as may be determined by the Legislative Council by resolution under this subsection or under section 16 of the Oil (Conservation and Control) Ordinance (Cap 264), in advance of Universal Standard Time.

Currently, Hong Kong time is defined as UTC+08:00. The reference in section 67(2) to the Oil (Conservation and Control) Ordinance is actually a power given to the Legislative Council of Hong Kong to change Hong Kong Time for the purposes of conserving oil, i.e. to implement daylight saving time. However, no daylight saving time has been observed since 1979. The Hong Kong Time was first set to Local Mean Time (GMT+07:36:42) on 1 January 1885 at 13:00 by the then Royal Observatory Hong Kong. In 1904, the

Greenwich Mean Time Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, counted from midnight. At different times in the past, it has been calculated in different ways, including being calculated from noon; as a con ...

was adopted as the basis for Hong Kong Time, the time was set at 8 hours in advance of Greenwich Mean Time. The current

Coordinated Universal Time Coordinated Universal Time or UTC is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is within about one second of mean solar time (such as UT1) at 0° longitude (at the IERS Reference Meridian as the currently use ...

system was adopted as an official time standard on 1 January 1972. However, the legal Hong Kong Time still remained based on Greenwich Mean Time until it was changed to Universal Standard Time in 1998 after the

Hong Kong handover Sovereignty of Hong Kong was transferred from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China (PRC) at midnight on 1 July 1997. This event ended 156 years of British rule in the former colony. Hong Kong was established as a special admini ...

Timekeeping

Timeballs near Marine Poice Headquarters Compound, 1908

From 1885, Hong Kong Time was determined by

astronomical observation Observational astronomy is a division of astronomy that is concerned with recording data about the observable universe, in contrast with theoretical astronomy, which is mainly concerned with calculating the measurable implications of physical m ...

s at the Hong Kong Observatory using a 6-inch equatorial mount and a 3-inch

Transit Circle The meridian circle is an instrument for timing of the passage of stars across the local meridian, an event known as a culmination, while at the same time measuring their angular distance from the nadir. These are special purpose telescopes mo ...

. The time was announced to the general public, particularly mariners, by dropping a 6-feet diameter

time ball A time ball or timeball is a time-signalling device. It consists of a large, painted wooden or metal ball that is dropped at a predetermined time, principally to enable navigators aboard ships offshore to verify the setting of their marine chron ...

from a mast exactly at 13:00 daily in front the

Marine Police Headquarters Compound The Former Marine Police Headquarters Compound, completed in 1884, is located in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong. From 1884 to 1996, the Compound served as the headquarters for the Marine Police, which moved to Sai Wan Ho in 1996 The compo ...

, where it is visible from the

Victoria Harbour Victoria Harbour is a natural landform harbour in Hong Kong separating Hong Kong Island in the south from the Kowloon Peninsula to the north. The harbour's deep, sheltered waters and strategic location on South China Sea were instrumental in ...

. In January 1908, the time ball was relocated to the hill of

Blackhead Point Blackhead Point (), also known as Tai Pau Mai () indigenously, or by the names Tsim Sha Tsui Point and Signal Hill (), was a cape before any land reclamation took place in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong. It currently remains a small hill nea ...

where it had even higher visibility. With the rise of radio broadcast and the launching of

Radio Hong Kong Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) is the public broadcasting service in Hong Kong. GOW, the predecessor to RTHK, was established in 1928 as the first broadcasting service in Hong Kong. As a government department under the Commerce and Econom ...

in 1922, the importance of the time ball decreased. It was decommissioned on 30 June 1933. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, the equatorial mount and transit circle were lost. After the war, a

pendulum clock A pendulum clock is a clock that uses a pendulum, a swinging weight, as its timekeeping element. The advantage of a pendulum for timekeeping is that it is a harmonic oscillator: It swings back and forth in a precise time interval dependent on i ...

was installed and regulated by radio time signals from other timekeeping centres. Timing accuracy gradually improved from the daily

engineering tolerance Engineering tolerance is the permissible limit or limits of variation in: # a physical dimension; # a measured value or physical property of a material, manufactured object, system, or service; # other measured values (such as temperature, hum ...

of a few seconds to one-fifth of a second. In 1966, the pendulum clock in the

Royal Observatory Hong Kong The Hong Kong Observatory is a weather forecast agency of the government of Hong Kong. The Observatory forecasts the weather and issues warnings on weather-related hazards. It also monitors and makes assessments on radiation levels in H ...

was replaced by a

crystal oscillator A crystal oscillator is an electronic oscillator circuit that uses a piezoelectric crystal as a frequency-selective element. The oscillator frequency is often used to keep track of time, as in quartz wristwatches, to provide a stable clock ...

timing system. In the same year, the Royal Observatory started to broadcast the time directly with a 6-pip time signal on 95 MHz. This continued until 16 September 1989. In 1980, the Royal Observatory adopted a timing system based on a Caesium beam atomic clock. This system narrowed the engineering tolerance down to less than 1 millisecond. The frequency standard of the clock is based on the

primary standard A primary standard in metrology is a standard that is sufficiently accurate such that it is not calibrated by or subordinate to other standards. Primary standards are defined via other quantities like length, mass and time. Primary standards are ...

used by Japan's Communications Research Laboratory. In 1994, the atomic clock was replaced with a newer model. Current Hong Kong Time can be obtained from the Observatory'
Network Time Server
.

Daylight Saving

Hong Kong adopted

daylight saving Daylight saving time (DST), also referred to as daylight savings time or simply daylight time (United States, Canada, and Australia), and summer time (United Kingdom, European Union, and others), is the practice of advancing clocks (typicall ...

measures in 1941. However, the practice eventually declined in popularity and was eliminated after 1979.

Time zone serial

Asia/Hong_Kong

References

External links