![Imperial Ordinance 167 issued on December 27, Meiji 28 (1895)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Imperial_Ordinance_167_issued_on_December_27%2C_Meiji_28_%281895%29.png)
, or , is the standard
time zone
A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal, Commerce, commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between Country, countries and their Administrative division, subdivisions instead of ...
in
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
, 9 hours ahead of UTC (
UTC+09:00). Japan does not observe
daylight saving time
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 ...
, though its introduction has been debated on several occasions. During
World War II
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 opposin ...
, the time zone was often referred to as Tokyo Standard Time.
Japan Standard Time is equivalent to
Korean Standard Time
South Korea has one time zone, Korea Standard Time ( UTC+09:00), which is abbreviated KST. South Korea currently does not observe daylight saving time, but experimented with it during the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.
History
In 1434, inventor ...
,
Pyongyang Time
Time in North Korea, called Pyongyang Time ( or PYT) or Standard Time of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (), is since May 2018 equal to Korea Standard Time: 9 hours ahead of UTC ( UTC+09:00). Like South Korea, North Korea does not curren ...
(
North Korea
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...
),
Eastern Indonesia Standard Time,
East-Timorese Standard Time and
Yakutsk Time
Yakutsk Time (YAKT) is a time zone in Russia which is nine hours ahead of UTC, and six hours ahead of Moscow Time (MSK).
The time zone covers Sakha Republic (western part), Amur Oblast and Zabaykalsky Krai.
On 27 March 2011, Russia moved to ye ...
(
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
).
History
Before the
Meiji era (1868–1912), each local region had its own time zone in which noon was when the sun was exactly at its
culmination
In observational astronomy, culmination is the passage of a celestial object (such as the Sun, the Moon, a planet, a star, constellation or a deep-sky object) across the observer's local meridian. These events were also known as meridian transits ...
. As modern transportation methods, such as trains, were adopted, this practice became a source of confusion. For example, there is a difference of about 5 degrees longitude between
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...
and
Osaka
is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of 2. ...
and because of this, a train that departed from Tokyo would arrive at Osaka 20 minutes behind the time in Tokyo. In 1886, Ordinance 51 was issued in response to this problem, which stated:
![Akashi Minicipal Planetarium](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Akashi_Minicipal_Planetarium.JPG)
According to this, the was set 9 hours ahead of
GMT
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 cons ...
(UTC had not been established yet). In the ordinance, the first clause mentions GMT, the second defines east longitude and west longitude and the third says the standard time zone would be in effect from 1888. The city of
Akashi Akashi may refer to:
People
*Akashi (surname)
Places
*Akashi, Hyōgo
*Akashi Station, a Japanese railroad station on the Sanyō Main Line
*Akashi Strait
*Akashi Kaikyō Bridge, crossing the former
*Akashi Castle
*Akashi Domain
* Akashi, the name ...
in
Hyōgo Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Hyōgo Prefecture has a population of 5,469,762 () and has a geographic area of . Hyōgo Prefecture borders Kyoto Prefecture to the east, Osaka Prefecture to the southeast, an ...
is located exactly on 135 degrees east longitude and subsequently became known as ''Toki no machi'' (Town of Time).
With the
annexation of Taiwan in 1895, Ordinance 167 (pictured on the right) was issued to rename the previous Standard Time to and establish a new at
120° longitude as the time zone for the Japanese
Miyako and
Yaeyama Islands
The Yaeyama Islands (八重山列島 ''Yaeyama-rettō'', also 八重山諸島 ''Yaeyama-shotō'', Yaeyama: ''Yaima'', Yonaguni: ''Daama'', Okinawan: ''Yeema'', Northern Ryukyuan: ''Yapema'') are an archipelago in the southwest of Okinawa ...
, as well as Taiwan and its
Penghu Islands
The Penghu (, Hokkien POJ: ''Phîⁿ-ô͘'' or ''Phêⁿ-ô͘'' ) or Pescadores Islands are an archipelago of 90 islands and islets in the Taiwan Strait, located approximately west from the main island of Taiwan, covering an are ...
. While
Korea
Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...
came
under Japanese rule in 1910,
Korea Standard Time
South Korea has one time zone, Korea Standard Time ( UTC+09:00), which is abbreviated KST. South Korea currently does not observe daylight saving time, but experimented with it during the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.
History
In 1434, inventor ...
of GMT+08:30 continued to be used until 1912, when it was changed to Central Standard Time.
Western Standard Time, which was used in
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
and some parts of
Okinawa
is a prefecture of Japan. Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan, has a population of 1,457,162 (as of 2 February 2020) and a geographic area of 2,281 km2 (880 sq mi).
Naha is the capital and largest city ...
, was abolished by Ordinance 529 in 1937 and replaced by Central Standard Time in those areas. Territories occupied by Japan during World War II, including
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
and
Malaya, adopted Japan Standard Time for the duration of their occupation, but reverted after
Japan's surrender
The surrender of the Empire of Japan in World War II was announced by Emperor Hirohito on 15 August and formally signed on 2 September 1945, bringing the war's hostilities to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy ...
.
Between 1948 and 1951
occupied Japan
Japan was occupied and administered by the victorious Allies of World War II from the 1945 surrender of the Empire of Japan at the end of the war until the
Treaty of San Francisco took effect in 1952. The occupation, led by the United States wi ...
observed
daylight saving time
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 ...
(DST) from the first Saturday in May at 24:00 to the second Saturday in September at 24:00 (with the exception of 1949, when the spring forward transition was the first Saturday in April at 24:00). More recently there have been efforts to restore daylight saving time in Japan but these have not succeeded.
In May 2013, former Tokyo governor
Naoki Inose
is a Japanese politician, journalist, historian, social critic and biographer of literary figures such as Yukio Mishima and Osamu Dazai. He served as Lieutenant Governor of Tokyo from June 2007Jun Hongo"Ishihara's new right-hand man settles in."'' ...
proposed permanently moving the country’s time zone ahead by 2 hours to better align global markets and make Japan’s stock market to be the first to open in the world at any given time.
Time zones of the Japanese Empire
The two-time-zone system was implemented in Japan between January 1896 and September 1937:
From October 1937, Central Standard Time was also used in western Okinawa and Taiwan.
IANA time zone database
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 ...
contains one zone for Japan in the file
zone.tab, named Asia/Tokyo.
Daylight saving time in Japan
![TZdiff-Japan](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/TZdiff-Japan.png)
From 1948 to 1952, Japan observed daylight saving time (DST) between May and September every year. The
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
imposed this policy as part of the
Allied occupation of Japan
Japan was occupied and administered by the victorious Allies of World War II from the 1945 surrender of the Empire of Japan at the end of the war until the
Treaty of San Francisco took effect in 1952. The occupation, led by the United States w ...
. In 1952, three weeks before the occupation ended, the Japanese government, which had been granted increased powers, abolished daylight saving time, and the Allied occupation authorities did not interfere. Since then, DST has never been officially implemented nationwide in Japan.
Starting in the late 1990s, a movement to reinstate DST in Japan gained some popularity, aiming at saving energy and increasing recreational time. The
Hokkaido
is Japan's second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by the undersea railway Seikan Tunnel.
The la ...
region is particularly in favour of this movement because daylight starts as early as 03:30 (in standard time) there in summer due to its high latitude and its location near the eastern edge of the time zone, with much of the region's solar time actually closer to UTC+10:00. Because of this, the sun sets shortly after 19:00 in much of the eastern part of the country (in Tokyo, the latest sunset of the entire year is 19:01, from 26 June to 1 July, despite being at 35°41'N latitude). Since 2000, a few local governments and commerce departments have promoted unmandated hour-earlier work schedule experiments during the summer without officially resetting clocks.
The Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy of the
Cabinet Office
The Cabinet Office is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for supporting the prime minister and Cabinet. It is composed of various units that support Cabinet committees and which co-ordinate the delivery of government objecti ...
is expected
(written October 2013) to propose that the Japanese government begin studying DST in an attempt to help combat
global warming
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
.
Japanese Prime Minister
The prime minister of Japan ( Japanese: 内閣総理大臣, Hepburn: ''Naikaku Sōri-Daijin'') is the head of government of Japan. The prime minister chairs the Cabinet of Japan and has the ability to select and dismiss its Ministers of Stat ...
Shinzō Abe
Shinzo Abe ( ; ja, 安倍 晋三, Hepburn: , ; 21 September 1954 – 8 July 2022) was a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 20 ...
made a significant effort to introduce daylight saving time, but was ultimately unsuccessful. However, it is not clear that DST would
conserve energy in Japan. A 2007 simulation estimated that introducing DST to Japan would increase energy use in
Osaka
is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of 2. ...
residences by 0.13%, with a 0.02% saving due to lighting more than outweighed by a 0.15% increase due to cooling costs; the simulation did not examine non-residential buildings.
See also
*
Japanese calendar
Japanese calendar types have included a range of official and unofficial systems. At present, Japan uses the Gregorian calendar together with year designations stating the year of the reign of the current Emperor. The written form starts with t ...
*
Japanese clock
A is a mechanical clock that has been made to tell traditional Japanese time, a system in which daytime and nighttime are always divided into six periods whose lengths consequently change with the season. Mechanical clocks were introduced into ...
*
JJY
JJY is the call sign of a low frequency time signal radio station located in Japan.
The station broadcasts from two sites, one on Otakadoyayama Transmitter, Mount Otakadoya, near Fukushima, Fukushima, Fukushima, and the other on Haganeyama Transmi ...
*
UTC+09:00
References
External links
*
{{Asia topic, Time in
Time in Japan
Time zones