The UTC offset is the difference in hours and minutes between

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 Solar time#Mean solar time, mean solar time (such as Universal Time, UT1) at 0° longitude (at the I ...

(UTC) and local solar time, at a particular place. This difference is expressed with respect to UTC and is generally shown in the format , , or . So if the time being described is two hours ahead of UTC (such as in

Kigali Kigali () is the capital and largest city of Rwanda. It is near the nation's geographic centre in a region of rolling hills, with a series of valleys and ridges joined by steep slopes. As a primate city, Kigali has been Rwanda's economic, cult ...

Rwanda Rwanda (; rw, u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator ...

pprox. 30° E, the UTC offset would be "+02:00", "+0200", or simply "+02". By convention, every inhabited place in the world has a UTC offset that is a multiple of 15 minutes but the majority of offsets are stated in whole hours. There are many cases where the national

standard time Standard time is the synchronisation of clocks within a geographical region to a single time standard, rather than a local mean time standard. Generally, standard time agrees with the local mean time at some meridian that passes through the ...

uses a time zone that differs from the UTC offset appropriate to its longitude.

Time zones and time offsets

A ''

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 ...

'' is a geographical

region In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics ( physical geography), human impact characteristics ( human geography), and the interaction of humanity an ...

in which residents observe the same

. Although nominally a new time zone is established every 15 degrees east or west of the

prime meridian A prime meridian is an arbitrary meridian (a line of longitude) in a geographic coordinate system at which longitude is defined to be 0°. Together, a prime meridian and its anti-meridian (the 180th meridian in a 360°-system) form a great ...

(meaning a one hour change in solar time), in practice local geographical or political considerations may vary its application. The most extreme example of this is

time in China The time in China follows a single standard time offset of UTC+08:00 (eight hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time), even though the country spans almost five geographical time zones. The official national standard time is called ''Beijing Tim ...

, which applies a single standard time offset of UTC+08:00 (eight hours ahead of

), even though

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

spans five geographical

time zones Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...

. The UTC offset (or time offset) is an amount of time subtracted from or added to

(UTC) time to specify the local solar time (which may not be the current

civil time In modern usage, civil time refers to statutory time as designated by civilian authorities. Modern civil time is generally national standard time in a time zone at a fixed offset from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), possibly adjusted by dayligh ...

, whether it is standard time or

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 ...

Daylight saving time

Several regions of the world use

(DST) and the UTC offset during this season is typically obtained by adding one hour to local standard time.

Central European Time Central European Time (CET) is a standard time which is 1 hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The time offset from UTC can be written as UTC+01:00. It is used in most parts of Europe and in a few North African countries. CE ...

UTC+01:00 is replaced by

Central European Summer Time Central European Summer Time (CEST), sometimes referred to as Central European Daylight Time (CEDT), is the standard clock time observed during the period of summer daylight-saving in those European countries which observe Central European Time ...

UTC+02:00, and Pacific Standard Time UTC−08:00 is replaced by Pacific Daylight Time UTC−07:00.

Notable examples

External links

Time Service Dept., U.S. Naval Observatory
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Time zones and time offsets

Daylight saving time

Notable examples

See also

External links