Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and th ...

the standard time is the Central European Time (CET). Norway observes Summer Time (''sommertid'',

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 transition dates are the same as for other European countries.

Svalbard Svalbard ( , ), also known as Spitsbergen, or Spitzbergen, is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. North of mainland Europe, it is about midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the group rang ...

and

Jan Mayen Jan Mayen () is a Norwegian volcanic island in the Arctic Ocean with no permanent population. It is long (southwest-northeast) and in area, partly covered by glaciers (an area of around the Beerenberg volcano). It has two parts: larger nor ...

observe the same time as the mainland. Norway stretches more to the west and east than it might look like on a common

Mercator projection The Mercator projection () is a cylindrical map projection presented by Flemish geographer and cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569. It became the standard map projection for navigation because it is unique in representing north as up and so ...

map. The westernmost point in Norway proper is on 4°30′E longitude, meaning 42 minutes difference between mean solar time and official time, while the easternmost point in Norway proper is on 31°10′E longitude, meaning 64 minutes difference between mean solar time and official time. The difference between those points is 26°41′ or 1 hour 46 minutes. The 15° E meridian passes Norway in the northern part of the country, from north over

Vesterålen Vesterålen is a district and archipelago in Nordland county, Norway. It is located just north of Lofoten and west of Harstad. It is the northernmost part of Nordland county. Sortland is the largest town, situated near the center of the archipel ...

and

Lofoten Lofoten () is an archipelago and a traditional district in the county of Nordland, Norway. Lofoten has distinctive scenery with dramatic mountains and peaks, open sea and sheltered bays, beaches and untouched lands. There are two towns, Svolvæ ...

islands, then

Vestfjorden Vestfjorden is a long fjord or oceanic sea in Nordland county, Norway. The name literally means "the west fjord", although it is called a fjord, it could best be described as a firth or an open bight of sea. The "fjord" lies between the Lofote ...

and finally

Salten Salten is a traditional district in Nordland county, Norway. It includes the municipalities of Meløy, Gildeskål, Bodø, Beiarn, Saltdal, Fauske, Sørfold, Steigen, and Hamarøy. Salten covers an area of about and has a population (2016 ...

and

Saltfjellet Saltfjellet is a mountain area in Nordland county, Norway that separates the two regions of Helgeland and Salten. It is also a cultural border between the Southern and Central parts of Sápmi. Geography and environment The Saltfjell is one of th ...

, a total distance of about 320 km. The vast majority of the population in Norway lives to the west of the 15°E longitude.

Notation

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 the area with ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code NO (Norway) in the file

zone.tab This is a list of time zones from release of the tz database. Legend Type * Canonical - The primary, preferred zone name. * Link - An alternative name (alias) which links to a canonical zone. * Link - A standard Link (as above). The dagger symb ...

, where it is named " Europe/Oslo".

is covered by the zone Arctic/Longyearbyen, while

is covered by Atlantic/Jan Mayen. Both are links to Europe/Oslo. Data for Norway directly from

of the

. Columns marked with * are the columns from zone.tab itself.

Daylight saving time

Norway follows the European Union in this matter.

History

Norway was comparably late to introduce an official standard time, mainly due to the lack of a railway network connecting the country in an east–west direction. Throughout Norway, the main means of transport were by cart onshore and ship at sea, both too slow and unpredictable to have an issue with the local time. With the introduction of the

electrical telegraph Electrical telegraphs were point-to-point text messaging systems, primarily used from the 1840s until the late 20th century. It was the first electrical telecommunications system and the most widely used of a number of early messaging systems ...

in 1855 between Kristiania (Oslo) and

Drammen Drammen () is a city and municipality in Viken, Norway. The port and river city of Drammen is centrally located in the south-eastern and most populated part of Norway. Drammen municipality also includes smaller towns and villages such as Konn ...

, the local time of Copenhagen,

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , established ...

was used for this purpose, until 1866 when it was replaced by Oslo local time. The railways from the Eastern terminus (Østbanen) in Oslo used Oslo local time, while the railways from the Western terminus (Vestbanen) used Drammen local time, a difference of 4 minutes. The unconnected (during 19th century with large gaps to the Oslo network) railways from

Bergen Bergen (), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipality in Vestland county on the west coast of Norway. , its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway. The municipality covers and is on the peninsula ...

and

Stavanger Stavanger (, , US usually , ) is a city and municipality in Norway. It is the fourth largest city and third largest metropolitan area in Norway (through conurbation with neighboring Sandnes) and the administrative center of Rogaland county. Th ...

used these cities local time, both 22 minutes after Oslo time. It was not until 1885 the first suggestions came to introduce standard time in Norway, but this met great opposition by influencing groups and locally in the districts of Norway. The most complicated of four propositions was to divide Norway into 5 time zones 15 minutes apart. But none of them was accepted. In 1893 the time issue emerged again, and since the last time, the neighbouring countries

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

and

had adopted standard time, so also Germany (Central European time). In

, the railways in western and eastern Norway were planned to be connected in a few years (happened 1909), and now the proposition to adapt to Central European was widely accepted. Hence, one standard time was introduced on January 1, 1895 and has since then remained Greenwich + 1 (Central European time). On this date church clocks was either moved backward (east of 15°E), or forward (west of 15°E), except for

Hadsel Hadsel ( sme, Válafierda) is a municipality in Nordland county, Norway. It is part of the traditional district of Vesterålen. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Stokmarknes. Other villages in Hadsel include Fiskebøl ...

and

Steigen Steigen ('stejgen) is a municipality in Nordland county, Norway. It is part of the traditional district of Salten. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Leinesfjord. Other villages include Bogen, Leines, Nordfold, No ...

parishes that continued with their local time as their churches lie almost on the 15°E meridian. The local time continued to live on for quite some time, especially in rural communities, where both the local and standard time were in use (the latter being referred to as ''railway time'').Local time and World Standard time (in Norwegian)
/ref> In Norway, summer time was observed in 1916, 1943–45, and 1959–65. The arrangement 1959-65 was controversial, and was discontinued 1965. Their neighbour, Sweden, did not use it during this period. However, in 1980 summer time was reintroduced (together with Sweden and Denmark), and since 1996 Norway has followed the European Union regarding transition dates.

References

External links