Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
is located at a longitude that would naturally put it in the
UTC−04:00 or
UTC−05:00 time zone
A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal, commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between countries and their subdivisions instead of strictly following longitude, because it ...
; however, it actually uses the
UTC−03:00 time zone. Argentina determines whether to 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 ...
on a year-by-year basis, and individual provinces may opt out of the federal decision. At present, Argentina 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 ...
.
The
Argentine Hydrographic Service
The Argentine Hydrographic Service ( es, Servicio de Hidrografía Naval, abbreviated SHN) is the branch of the Ministry of Defense responsible for providing hydrographic services.
Background
Created on January 1, 1879, as ''Oficina Central de Hid ...
maintains the official national time.
History
The first official standardization took place on 31 October 1894.
The official time switched between
UTC−04:00 and
UTC−03:00 from 1920 to 1969, and then between
UTC−03:00 and
UTC−02:00 from 1974 to 1993. Historically, some or all of Argentina has observed daylight saving time in summer 1989–1990 to summer 1992–1993 and again in 2007−2009. On 7 March 1993, it was fixed at
UTC−03:00, called Argentina Time (ART)
IANA time zone database
In the file
zone.tab of 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 ...
Argentina has the following zones:
# America/Argentina/Buenos_Aires – Buenos Aires (BA, CF)
# America/Argentina/Cordoba – most locations (CD, CC, CR, ER, FO, MN, SF)
# America/Argentina/Salta (SA, LP, NQ, RN)
# America/Argentina/Jujuy – Jujuy (JY)
# America/Argentina/Tucuman – Tucuman (TM)
# America/Argentina/Catamarca – Catamarca (CT), Chubut (CH)
# America/Argentina/La Rioja – La Rioja (LR)
# America/Argentina/San Juan – San Juan (SJ)
# America/Argentina/Mendoza – Mendoza (MZ)
# America/Argentina/San Luis – San Luis (SL)
# America/Argentina/Rio Gallegos – Santa Cruz (SC)
# America/Argentina/Ushuaia – Tierra del Fuego (TF)
# America/Argentina/Santiago_del_Estero (SE)
References
tz database– The tz database contains an extensive history of time zone and daylight saving time changes, with references to official sources for changes to time zones, for Argentina and the rest of the world.
External links
Observatorio Naval Buenos Aires: National time
Time in South America
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