<h2>The <code>tz</code> database</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain">public-domain</a> time zone database contains code and data that represent the history of local time for many representative locations around the globe. It is updated periodically to reflect changes made by political bodies to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_zone">time zone</a> boundaries, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinated_Universal_Time">UTC</a> offsets, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving">daylight-saving</a> rules. This database (often called <code>zoneinfo</code> or <code>tz</code>) is used by several implementations, including <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/">the GNU C Library</a> (used in <a href="http://www.linux.org/">GNU/Linux</a>), <a href="http://www.android.com/">Android</a>, <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox_OS">Firefox OS</a>, <a href="http://www.freebsd.org/">FreeBSD</a>, <a href="http://netbsd.org/">NetBSD</a>, <a href="http://openbsd.org/">OpenBSD</a>, <a href="http://cygwin.com/">Cygwin</a>, <a href="http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/">DJGPP</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebOS">webOS</a>, <a href="http://ibm.com/aix">AIX</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackBerry_10">BlackBerry 10</a>, <a href="http://www.apple.com/ios/">iOS</a>, <a href="http://windows.microsoft.com/">Microsoft Windows</a>, <a href="http://h71000.www7.hp.com/">OpenVMS</a>, <a href="http://oracle.com/database">Oracle Database</a>, <a href="http://www.apple.com/osx/">OS X</a>, and <a href="http://oracle.com/solaris">Solaris</a>.</p>
<p>Each location in the database represents a national region where all clocks keeping local time have agreed since 1970. Locations are identified by continent or ocean and then by the name of the location, which is typically the largest city within the region. For example, <code>America/New_York</code> represents most of the US eastern time zone; <code>America/Phoenix</code> represents most of Arizona, which uses mountain time without daylight saving time (DST); <code>America/Detroit</code> represents most of Michigan, which uses eastern time but with different DST rules in 1975; and other entries represent smaller regions like Starke County, Indiana, which switched from central to eastern time in 1991 and switched back in 2006. To use the database on an extended <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POSIX">POSIX</a> implementation set the <code>TZ</code> environment variable to the location's full name, e.g., <code>TZ="America/New_York"</code>.</p>
<p>In the <code>tz</code> database's <a href="ftp://ftp.iana.org/tz/releases/">FTP releases</a> the code is in the file <code>tzcode<var>C</var>.tar.gz</code>, where <code><var>C</var></code> is the code's version; similarly, the data are in <code>tzdata<var>D</var>.tar.gz</code>, where <code><var>D</var></code> is the data's version. Each version is a four-digit year followed by lower-case letters (a through z, then za through zz, then zza through zzz, and so on). Convenience links to the <a href="ftp://ftp.iana.org/tz/tzcode-latest.tar.gz">latest code</a> and <a href="ftp://ftp.iana.org/tz/tzdata-latest.tar.gz">latest data</a> revisions are also available. The following <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_shell">shell</a> commands download these files to a GNU/Linux or similar host; see the downloaded <code>README</code> file for what to do next.</p>
<pre>
<code>mkdir tz
cd tz
<a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/">wget</a> --retr-symlinks
'ftp://ftp.iana.org/tz/tz*-latest.tar.gz'
<a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gzip/">gzip</a> -dc tzcode-latest.tar.gz |
<a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/">tar</a> -xf -
gzip -dc tzdata-latest.tar.gz | tar -xf -
</code></pre>
<p>The code and data files can also be obtained from the <a href="http://www.iana.org/time-zones">Time Zone Database website</a> of the <a href="http://www.iana.org">Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)</a>. An <a href="https://github.com/eggert/tz">unofficial development repository</a> of the code and data is available in <a href="http://git-scm.com/">Git</a> form from <a href="https://github.com/">GitHub</a>; be careful, as this repository is less well tested and probably contains more errors.</p>
<p>The code lets you compile the <code>tz</code> source files into machine-readable binary files, one for each location. It also lets you read a <code>tz</code> binary file and interpret time stamps for that location.</p>
<p>The data are by no means authoritative. If you find errors, please send changes to the <a href="mailto:tz@iana.org">time zone mailing list</a>. You can also <a href="http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.time.tz">browse recent messages</a> sent to the mailing list, <a href="https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/tz">subscribe</a> to it, and browse the <a href="http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/">archive of old messages</a>. For further information about updates, please see <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6557">Procedures for Maintaining the Time Zone Database</a> (Internet RFC 6557).</p>
<p>The Web has several other sources for time zone and daylight saving time data. Here are some links that may be of interest.</p>
<h2>Commentary on the <code>tz</code> database</h2>
<ul>
<li>The article <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tz_database">tz database</a> is an encyclopedic summary.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.cstdbill.com/tzdb/tz-how-to.html">How to Read the tz Database Source Files</a> explains the tz database format.</li>
<li><a href="http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/10/23/a-literary-appreciation-of-the-olsonzoneinfotz-database/">A literary appreciation of the Olson/Zoneinfo/tz database</a> comments on the database's style.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Web sites using recent versions of the <code>tz</code> database</h2>
<p>These are listed roughly in ascending order of complexity and fanciness.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/xtra/tzdatepick.html">Date and Time Gateway</a> lets you see the <code>TZ</code> values directly.</li>
<li><a href="http://convertit.com/Go/ConvertIt/World_Time/Current_Time.ASP">Current Time in 1000 Places</a> uses descriptions of the values.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.timezoneconverter.com/cgi-bin/tzc.tzc">Time Zone Converter</a> uses a pulldown menu.</li>
<li><a href="http://home.telfort.nl/%7Et876506/TZworld.html">Complete timezone information for all countries</a> displays tables of DST rules.</li>
<li><a href="http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/">The World Clock – Time Zones</a> lets you sort zone names and convert times.</li>
<li><a href="http://permatime.com/">Permatime</a> generates and views links that refer to a particular point in time and can be displayed in multiple timezones.</li>
<li><a href="http://daylight-savings-time.info/">Daylight Saving Time info</a> shows a graph of time difference versus time for any pair of locations.</li>
<li><a href="http://worldtime.io/">worldtime.io</a> also contains data about time zone boundaries; it supports queries via place names and shows location maps.</li>
<li><a href="http://simpletimerclocks.mozdev.org/">Simple Timer + Clocks</a> is a Firefox add-on which uses a timezone data file generated from the tz data files.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Other time zone database formats</h2>
<ul>
<li>The <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5545"> Internet Calendaring and Scheduling Core Object Specification (iCalendar)</a>, Internet RFC 5445 covers time zone data; see its VTIMEZONE calendar component. <a href="http://calconnect.org/">CalConnect, The Calendaring and Scheduling Consortium</a> is promoting further work in this area. <a href="http://calconnect.org/publications/icalendartimezoneproblemsandrecommendationsv1.0.pdf">iCalendar TIMEZONE Problems and Recommendations</a> offers guidelines and recommendations for the use of VTIMEZONE and <code>tz</code>.</li>
<li>CalConnect's <a href="http://calconnect.org/tc-timezone.shtml">TIMEZONE Technical Committee</a> has developed a <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-douglass-timezone-service-08">draft timezone service protocol</a>. The committee's earlier <a href="http://calconnect.org/publications/timezoneregistryandservicerecommendationsv1.0.pdf">Timezone Registry and Service Recommendations</a> discusses a strategy for defining and deploying a time zone registration process that would establish unique names for each version of each <code>tz</code> zone, along with a polygonal representation of the geographical area corresponding to the zone.</li>
<li>The <a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-calendar/">www-rdf-calendar</a> list discusses <a href="http://www.w3.org/RDF/">RDF</a>-based calendar and group scheduling systems, and has a <a href="http://www.w3.org/2002/12/cal/#tzd">workspace on time zone data</a> converted from <code>tz</code>. An earlier <a href="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/foo">schema</a> was sketched out.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Other <code>tz</code> compilers</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/vzic/">Vzic iCalendar Timezone Converter</a> describes a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_%28programming_language%29">C</a> program that compiles <code>tz</code> source into iCalendar-compatible VTIMEZONE files. Vzic is freely available under the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GNU General Public License (GPL)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/tzical">tziCal – tz database conversion utility</a> is like Vzic, except for the <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework">.NET framework</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://search.cpan.org/dist/DateTime-TimeZone/">DateTime::TimeZone</a> contains a script <code>parse_olson</code> that compiles <code>tz</code> source into <a href="http://www.perl.org/">Perl</a> modules. It is part of the Perl <a href="http://datetime.perl.org/">DateTime Project</a>, which is freely available under both the GPL and the Perl Artistic License. DateTime::TimeZone also contains a script <code>tests_from_zdump</code> that generates test cases for each clock transition in the <code>tz</code> database.</li>
<li><a href="http://icu-project.org/">International Components for Unicode (ICU)</a> contains C/C++ and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_%28programming_language%29">Java</a> libraries for internationalization that has a compiler from <code>tz</code> source into an ICU-specific format. ICU is freely available under a BSD-style license.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.joda.org/joda-time/">Joda Time – Java date and time API</a> contains a class <code>org.joda.time.tz.ZoneInfoCompiler</code> that compiles <code>tz</code> source into a Joda-specific binary format. Joda Time is freely available under a BSD-style license.</li>
<li><a href="http://nodatime.org/">Noda Time – Date and time API for .NET</a> is similar to Joda Time, but for the .NET framework instead of Java. It is freely available under the <a href="http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0">Apache License</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/mde/timezone-js">TimezoneJS.Date</a> is a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript">JavaScript</a> library that parses <code>tz</code> source files and interprets time stamps using an API that is upward compatible with standard JavaScript Dates. It is freely available under the Apache License.</li>
<li><a href="http://pytz.sourceforge.net">pytz – World Timezone Definitions for Python</a> compiles <code>tz</code> source into <a href="http://python.org/">Python</a>. It is freely available under a BSD-style license.</li>
<li><a href="http://tzinfo.rubyforge.org/">TZInfo – Ruby Timezone Library</a> compiles <code>tz</code> source into <a href="http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/">Ruby</a>. It is freely available under the MIT license.</li>
<li>The <a href="http://www.squeaksource.com/Chronos/">Chronos Date/Time Library</a> is a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smalltalk">Smalltalk</a> class library that compiles <code>tz</code> source into a time zone repository whose format is either proprietary or an <a href="http://www.w3.org/XML/">XML</a>-encoded representation.</li>
<li>Starting with version 8.5, <a href="http://tcl.tk/">Tcl</a> contains a developer-oriented parser that compiles <code>tz</code> source into text files, along with a runtime that can read those files. Tcl is freely available under a BSD-style license.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Other <code>tz</code> binary file readers</h2>
<ul>
<li>The <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/">GNU C Library</a> has an independent, thread-safe implementation of a <code>tz</code> binary file reader. This library is freely available under the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lesser.html"> GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)</a>, and is widely used in GNU/Linux systems.</li>
<li><a href="http://bmsi.com/java/#TZ">ZoneInfo.java</a> is a <code>tz</code> binary file reader written in Java. It is freely available under the LGPL.</li>
<li>Tcl, mentioned above, also contains a <code>tz</code> binary file reader.</li>
<li><a href="http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?DateTime::TimeZone::Tzfile">DateTime::TimeZone::Tzfile</a> is a <code>tz</code> binary file reader written in Perl. It is freely available under the same terms as Perl (dual GPL and Artistic license).</li>
<li>The public-domain <a href="https://github.com/dbaron/tz.js">tz.js</a> library contains a Python tool that converts <code>tz</code> binary data into <a href="http://www.json.org/">JSON</a>-format data suitable for use in its JavaScript library for time zone conversion. Dates before 1970 are not supported.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Other <code>tz</code>-based time zone software</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://foxclocks.org/">FoxClocks</a> is an extension for <a href="http://google.com/chrome">Google Chrome</a> and for <a href="http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Toolkit_API">Mozilla Toolkit</a> applications like <a href="http://mozilla.com/firefox">Firefox</a> and <a href="http://mozilla.com/thunderbird">Thunderbird</a>. It displays multiple clocks in the application window, and has a mapping interface to <a href="http://earth.google.com/">Google Earth</a>. It is freely available under the GPL.</li>
<li><a href="http://users.skynet.be/Peter.Verthez/projects/intclock/">International clock (intclock)</a> is a multi-timezone clock for GNU/Linux and similar systems. It is freely available under the GPL.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/java/overview/index.html">Oracle Java</a> releases since 1.4 contain a copy of a subset of a recent <code>tz</code> database in a Java-specific format.</li>
<li><a href="http://kimmo.suominen.com/sw/timezone/">Time Zone</a> is a <a href="http://wordpress.org/">WordPress</a> plugin. It is freely available under a BSD-style license.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.relativedata.com/time-zone-master">Time Zone Master</a> is a Microsoft Windows clock program that can automatically download, compile and use the <code>tzdata<var>D</var>.tar.gz</code> files as they are released. The Basic version is free.</li>
<li><a href="http://veladg.com/velaterra.html">VelaTerra</a> is a Mac OS X program. Its developers <a href="http://veladg.com/tzoffer.html">offer free licenses</a> to <code>tz</code> contributors.</li>
<li><a href="http://worldtimeexplorer.com/">World Time Explorer</a> is a Microsoft Windows program.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Other time zone databases</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.astro.com/cgi/aq.cgi">Atlas Query</a> is Astrodienst's Web version of Shanks and Pottenger's time zone history atlases published in both <a href="http://astrocom.com/astrology-products/software/acs-atlas-software">computer</a> and book form (<a href="http://www.astrocom.com/astrology/books/american-atlas">one volume for the U.S.</a>, and <a href="http://www.astrocom.com/astrology/books/international-atlas">one for other locations</a>) by <a href="http://astrocom.com/">Astro Computing Services</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://worldtime.com/">WORLDTIME: interactive atlas, time info, public holidays</a> contains information on local time, sunrise and sunset, and public holidays in several hundred cities around the world.</li>
<li><a href="http://worldtimeserver.com/">World Time Server</a> is another time zone database.</li>
<li><a href="http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/tzones.html">World Time Zones</a> contains data from the Time Service Department of the US Naval Observatory, used as the source for the <code>usno*</code> files in the <code>tz</code> distribution.</li>
<li>The <a href="http://www.iata.org/publications/Pages/ssim.aspx">Standard Schedules Information Manual</a> of the <a href="http://iata.org/index.htm">International Air Transport Association</a> gives current time zone rules for airports served by commercial aviation.</li>
<li>Some Microsoft Windows versions contain time zone information in an undocumented format, with IDs that can be mapped to <code>TZ</code> values using the <a href="http://unicode.org/cldr/charts/supplemental/zone_tzid.html">Zone → Tzid table</a> maintained by the CLDR data mentioned below.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Maps</h2>
<ul>
<li>The <a href="https://www.cia.gov/">United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)</a> publishes a <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/graphics/ref_maps/physical/pdf/standard_time_zones_of_the_world.pdf">time zone map</a>; the <a href="http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/world.html">Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection</a> of the University of Texas at Austin has copies of recent editions. The pictorial quality is good, but the maps do not indicate summer time, and parts of the data are a few years out of date.</li>
<li><a href="http://worldtimezone.com/">Current time around the world and standard time zones map of the world</a> has several fancy time zone maps; it covers Russia particularly well. The maps' pictorial quality is not quite as good as the CIA's but the maps are more up to date.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Time zone boundaries</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://efele.net/maps/tz/">TZ timezones maps</a> contains <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapefile">shapefiles</a> of sets of <code>tz</code> regions.</li>
<li><a href="http://derickrethans.nl/what-time-is-it.html">What Time is It Here?</a> applies <a href="http://www.mongodb.org/">MongoDB</a> geospatial query operators to shapefiles' data.</li>
<li><a href="http://statoids.com/statoids.html">Administrative Divisions of Countries ("Statoids")</a> contains lists of political subdivision data related to time zones.</li>
<li><a href="http://home.telfort.nl/%7Et876506/Multizones.html">Time zone boundaries for multizone countries</a> summarizes legal boundaries between time zones within countries.</li>
<li>Manifold.net's <a href="http://manifold.net/info/freestuff.shtml">Free Stuff for Manifold System Users</a> includes a Manifold-format map of world time zone boundaries distributed under the GPL.</li>
<li>The US Geological Survey's National Atlas of the United States publishes the <a href="http://nationalatlas.gov/mld/timeznp.html">Time Zones of the United States</a> in the public domain.</li>
<li>The GeoCommunity lists several commercial sources for <a href="http://spatialnews.geocomm.com/features/timezones/">International Time Zones and Time Zone Data</a>.</li>
<li>A ship within the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_waters">territorial waters</a> of any nation uses that nation's time. In international waters, time zone boundaries are meridians 15° apart, except that UTC−12 and UTC+12 are each 7.5° wide and are separated by the 180° meridian (not by the International Date Line, which is for land and territorial waters only). A captain can change ship's clocks any time after entering a new time zone; midnight changes are common.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Civil time concepts and history</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://physics.nist.gov/GenInt/Time/time.html">A Walk through Time</a> surveys the evolution of timekeeping.</li>
<li><a href="http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/">About Daylight Saving Time – History, rationale, laws & dates</a> is an overall history of DST.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/timezone/">Working with Time Zones</a> contains guidelines and best practices for software applications that deal with civil time.</li>
<li><a href="http://energy.ca.gov/daylightsaving.html">Saving Time, Saving Energy</a> discusses a primary justification for DST.</li>
<li><a href="http://seizethedaylight.com/dst/">A Brief History of Daylight Saving Time</a> summarizes some of the contentious history of DST.</li>
<li><a href="http://toi.inrim.it/uk/toi.html">The Time of Internet</a> describes time zones and daylight saving time, with diagrams. The time zone map is out of date, however.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/%7Egent0113/idl/idl.htm">A History of the International Date Line</a> tells the story of the most important time zone boundary.</li>
<li><a href="http://statoids.com/tconcept.html">Basic Time Zone Concepts</a> discusses terminological issues behind time zones.</li>
</ul>
<h2>National histories of legal time</h2>
<p>Australia</p>
<p>The Parliamentary Library has commissioned <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/library/pubs/rn/2006-07/07rn13.pdf">research note on daylight saving time in Australia</a>. The Bureau of Meteorology publishes a list of <a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/dst_times.shtml">Implementation Dates of Daylight Savings Time within Australia</a>.</p>
<p>Belgium</p>
<p>The Royal Observatory of Belgium maintains a table of <a href="http://www.astro.oma.be/GENERAL/INFO/nli001a.html">time in Belgium (in Dutch)</a>.</p>
<p>Brazil</p>
<p>The Time Service Department of the National Observatory records <a href="http://pcdsh01.on.br/DecHV.html">Brazil's daylight saving time decrees (in Portuguese)</a>.</p>
<p>Canada</p>
<p>National Research Council Canada publishes current and some older information about <a href="http://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/eng/services/time/time_zones.html">time zones & daylight saving time</a>.</p>
<p>Chile</p>
<p>The Chilean Hydrographic and Oceanographic Service publishes a <a href="http://www.horaoficial.cl/historia_hora.html">history of Chile's official time (in Spanish)</a>.</p>
<p>Germany</p>
<p>The National Institute for Science and Technology maintains the <a href="http://www.ptb.de/cms/en/fachabteilungen/abt4/fb-44/ag-441/realisation-of-legal-time-in-germany.html">Realisation of Legal Time in Germany</a>.</p>
<p>Israel</p>
<p>The Interior Ministry periodically issues <a href="ftp://ftp.cs.huji.ac.il/pub/tz/announcements">announcements (in Hebrew)</a>.</p>
<p>Mexico</p>
<p>The Investigation and Analysis Service of the Mexican Library of Congress has published a <a href="http://www.diputados.gob.mx/bibliot/publica/inveyana/polisoc/horver/">history of Mexican local time (in Spanish)</a>.</p>
<p>Malaysia</p>
<p>See Singapore below.</p>
<p>Netherlands</p>
<p><a href="http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/%7Egent0113/wettijd/wettijd.htm">Legal time in the Netherlands (in Dutch)</a> covers the history of local time in the Netherlands from ancient times.</p>
<p>New Zealand</p>
<p>The Department of Internal Affairs maintains a brief <a href="http://www.dia.govt.nz/Daylight-Saving-History">History of Daylight Saving</a>. The privately-maintained <a href="http://astrologyschool.com/nztime.html">History of New Zealand time</a> has more details.</p>
<p>Singapore</p>
<p><a href="http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/teaching/timezone.html">Why is Singapore in the "Wrong" Time Zone?</a> details the history of legal time in Singapore and Malaysia.</p>
<p>United Kingdom</p>
<p><a href="http://www.polyomino.org.uk/british-time/">History of legal time in Britain</a> discusses in detail the country with perhaps the best-documented history of clock adjustments. The National Physical Laboratory also maintains an <a href="http://www.npl.co.uk/educate-explore/what-is-time/archive-of-summer-time-dates-1916-2006">Archive of Summer time dates</a>.</p>
<h2>Precision timekeeping</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/5965-7984E.pdf">The Science of Timekeeping</a> is a thorough introduction to the theory and practice of precision timekeeping.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.ntp.org/">NTP: The Network Time Protocol</a> discusses how to synchronize clocks of Internet hosts.</li>
<li><a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4833">Timezone Options for DHCP</a> (Internet RFC 4833) specifies a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Host_Configuration_Protocol">DHCP</a> option for a server to configure a client's time zone and daylight saving settings automatically.</li>
<li><a href="http://gauss.gge.unb.ca/GMT.UT.and.the.RGO.html">A Few Facts Concerning GMT, UT, and the RGO</a> answers questions like "What is the difference between GMT and UTC?"</li>
<li><a href="http://www.cv.nrao.edu/%7Erfisher/Ephemerides/times.html">Astronomical Times</a> explains more abstruse astronomical time scales like TDT, TCG, and TDB. <a href="http://www.ucolick.org/%7Esla/leapsecs/timescales.html">Time Scales</a> goes into more detail, particularly for historical variants.</li>
<li>The <a href="http://iau.org/">IAU</a>'s <a href="http://www.iausofa.org/">SOFA</a> initiative publishes C and Fortran code for converting among time scales like TAI, TDB, TDT and UTC.</li>
<li><a href="http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/basics/bsf2-3.php">Basics of Space Flight – Reference Systems – Time Conventions</a> briefly explains interplanetary space flight timekeeping.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/mars24/help/notes.html">Technical Notes on Mars Solar Time as Adopted by the Mars24 Sunclock</a> briefly describes Mars Coordinated Time (MTC) and the diverse local time scales used by each landed mission on Mars.</li>
<li><a href="http://leapsecond.com/">LeapSecond.com</a> is dedicated not only to leap seconds but to precise time and frequency in general. It covers the state of the art in amateur timekeeping, and how the art has progressed over the past few decades.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.iers.org/IERS/EN/Publications/Bulletins/bulletins.html">IERS Bulletins</a> contains official publications of the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, which decides when leap seconds occur.</li>
<li>The <a href="http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs">Leap Second Discussion List</a> covers <a href="http://gauss.gge.unb.ca/papers.pdf/gpsworld.november99.pdf">McCarthy and Klepczynski's proposal to discontinue leap seconds</a>, discussed further in <a href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/%7Emgk25/time/metrologia-leapsecond.pdf">The leap second: its history and possible future</a>. <a href="http://www.ucolick.org/%7Esla/leapsecs/">UTC might be redefined without Leap Seconds</a> gives pointers on this contentious issue.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Time notation</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/%7Emgk25/iso-time.html">A summary of the international standard date and time notation</a> is a good summary of <a href="http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail?csnumber=40874">ISO 8601:2004 – Data elements and interchange formats – Information interchange – Representation of dates and times</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-2/#dateTime">XML Schema: Datatypes – dateTime</a> specifies a format inspired by ISO 8601 that is in common use in XML data.</li>
<li><a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5322">Internet Message Format</a> (Internet RFC 5322) §3.3 specifies the time notation used in email and <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2616">HTTP</a> headers.</li>
<li><a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3339">Date and Time on the Internet: Timestamps</a> (Internet RFC 3339) specifies an ISO 8601 profile for use in new Internet protocols.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.hackcraft.net/web/datetime/">Date & Time Formats on the Web</a> surveys web- and Internet-oriented date and time formats.</li>
<li><a href="http://exit109.com/%7Eghealton/y2k/yrexamples.html">The Best of Dates, the Worst of Dates</a> covers many problems encountered by software developers when handling dates and time stamps.</li>
<li>The <a href="http://unicode.org/cldr/">Unicode Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR) Project</a> has localizations for time zone names, abbreviations, identifiers, and formats. For example, it contains French translations for "Eastern European Summer Time", "EEST", and "Bucharest". <a href="http://unicode.org/cldr/charts/by_type/index.html">By-Type Chart</a> shows these values for many locales. ICU contains a mechanism for using this data.</li>
<li>Alphabetic time zone abbreviations should not be used as unique identifiers for UTC offsets as they are ambiguous in practice. For example, "EST" denotes 5 hours behind UTC in English-speaking North America, but it denotes 10 or 11 hours ahead of UTC in Australia; and French-speaking North Americans prefer "HNE" to "EST". For POSIX the <code>tz</code> database contains English abbreviations for all time stamps but in many cases these are merely inventions of the database maintainers.</li>
<li>Numeric time zone abbreviations typically count hours east of UTC, e.g., <code>+09</code> for Japan and <code>-10</code> for Hawaii. However, the POSIX <code>TZ</code> environment variable uses the opposite convention. For example, one might use <code>TZ="JST-9"</code> and <code>TZ="HST10"</code> for Japan and Hawaii, respectively. If the <code>tz</code> database is available, it is usually better to use settings like <code>TZ="Asia/Tokyo"</code> and <code>TZ="Pacific/Honolulu"</code> instead, as this should avoid confusion, handle old time stamps better, and insulate you better from any future changes to the rules. One should never set POSIX <code>TZ</code> to a value like <code>"GMT-9"</code>, though, since this would falsely claim that local time is nine hours ahead of UTC and the time zone is called "GMT".</li>
</ul>
<h2>Related indexes</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.iana.com/time-zones/repository/tz-art.htm">Time and the Arts</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.dmoz.org/Reference/Time/">Open Directory – Reference: Time</a></li>
<li><a href="http://dir.yahoo.com/Science/Measurements_and_Units/Time">Yahoo! Directory > Science > Measurements and Units > Time</a></li>
</ul>
<p>The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain">public-domain</a> time zone database contains code and data that represent the history of local time for many representative locations around the globe. It is updated periodically to reflect changes made by political bodies to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_zone">time zone</a> boundaries, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinated_Universal_Time">UTC</a> offsets, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving">daylight-saving</a> rules. This database (often called <code>zoneinfo</code> or <code>tz</code>) is used by several implementations, including <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/">the GNU C Library</a> (used in <a href="http://www.linux.org/">GNU/Linux</a>), <a href="http://www.android.com/">Android</a>, <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox_OS">Firefox OS</a>, <a href="http://www.freebsd.org/">FreeBSD</a>, <a href="http://netbsd.org/">NetBSD</a>, <a href="http://openbsd.org/">OpenBSD</a>, <a href="http://cygwin.com/">Cygwin</a>, <a href="http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/">DJGPP</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebOS">webOS</a>, <a href="http://ibm.com/aix">AIX</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackBerry_10">BlackBerry 10</a>, <a href="http://www.apple.com/ios/">iOS</a>, <a href="http://windows.microsoft.com/">Microsoft Windows</a>, <a href="http://h71000.www7.hp.com/">OpenVMS</a>, <a href="http://oracle.com/database">Oracle Database</a>, <a href="http://www.apple.com/osx/">OS X</a>, and <a href="http://oracle.com/solaris">Solaris</a>.</p>
<p>Each location in the database represents a national region where all clocks keeping local time have agreed since 1970. Locations are identified by continent or ocean and then by the name of the location, which is typically the largest city within the region. For example, <code>America/New_York</code> represents most of the US eastern time zone; <code>America/Phoenix</code> represents most of Arizona, which uses mountain time without daylight saving time (DST); <code>America/Detroit</code> represents most of Michigan, which uses eastern time but with different DST rules in 1975; and other entries represent smaller regions like Starke County, Indiana, which switched from central to eastern time in 1991 and switched back in 2006. To use the database on an extended <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POSIX">POSIX</a> implementation set the <code>TZ</code> environment variable to the location's full name, e.g., <code>TZ="America/New_York"</code>.</p>
<p>In the <code>tz</code> database's <a href="ftp://ftp.iana.org/tz/releases/">FTP releases</a> the code is in the file <code>tzcode<var>C</var>.tar.gz</code>, where <code><var>C</var></code> is the code's version; similarly, the data are in <code>tzdata<var>D</var>.tar.gz</code>, where <code><var>D</var></code> is the data's version. Each version is a four-digit year followed by lower-case letters (a through z, then za through zz, then zza through zzz, and so on). Convenience links to the <a href="ftp://ftp.iana.org/tz/tzcode-latest.tar.gz">latest code</a> and <a href="ftp://ftp.iana.org/tz/tzdata-latest.tar.gz">latest data</a> revisions are also available. The following <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_shell">shell</a> commands download these files to a GNU/Linux or similar host; see the downloaded <code>README</code> file for what to do next.</p>
<pre>
<code>mkdir tz
cd tz
<a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/">wget</a> --retr-symlinks
'ftp://ftp.iana.org/tz/tz*-latest.tar.gz'
<a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gzip/">gzip</a> -dc tzcode-latest.tar.gz |
<a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/">tar</a> -xf -
gzip -dc tzdata-latest.tar.gz | tar -xf -
</code></pre>
<p>The code and data files can also be obtained from the <a href="http://www.iana.org/time-zones">Time Zone Database website</a> of the <a href="http://www.iana.org">Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)</a>. An <a href="https://github.com/eggert/tz">unofficial development repository</a> of the code and data is available in <a href="http://git-scm.com/">Git</a> form from <a href="https://github.com/">GitHub</a>; be careful, as this repository is less well tested and probably contains more errors.</p>
<p>The code lets you compile the <code>tz</code> source files into machine-readable binary files, one for each location. It also lets you read a <code>tz</code> binary file and interpret time stamps for that location.</p>
<p>The data are by no means authoritative. If you find errors, please send changes to the <a href="mailto:tz@iana.org">time zone mailing list</a>. You can also <a href="http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.time.tz">browse recent messages</a> sent to the mailing list, <a href="https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/tz">subscribe</a> to it, and browse the <a href="http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/">archive of old messages</a>. For further information about updates, please see <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6557">Procedures for Maintaining the Time Zone Database</a> (Internet RFC 6557).</p>
<p>The Web has several other sources for time zone and daylight saving time data. Here are some links that may be of interest.</p>
<h2>Commentary on the <code>tz</code> database</h2>
<ul>
<li>The article <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tz_database">tz database</a> is an encyclopedic summary.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.cstdbill.com/tzdb/tz-how-to.html">How to Read the tz Database Source Files</a> explains the tz database format.</li>
<li><a href="http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/10/23/a-literary-appreciation-of-the-olsonzoneinfotz-database/">A literary appreciation of the Olson/Zoneinfo/tz database</a> comments on the database's style.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Web sites using recent versions of the <code>tz</code> database</h2>
<p>These are listed roughly in ascending order of complexity and fanciness.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/xtra/tzdatepick.html">Date and Time Gateway</a> lets you see the <code>TZ</code> values directly.</li>
<li><a href="http://convertit.com/Go/ConvertIt/World_Time/Current_Time.ASP">Current Time in 1000 Places</a> uses descriptions of the values.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.timezoneconverter.com/cgi-bin/tzc.tzc">Time Zone Converter</a> uses a pulldown menu.</li>
<li><a href="http://home.telfort.nl/%7Et876506/TZworld.html">Complete timezone information for all countries</a> displays tables of DST rules.</li>
<li><a href="http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/">The World Clock – Time Zones</a> lets you sort zone names and convert times.</li>
<li><a href="http://permatime.com/">Permatime</a> generates and views links that refer to a particular point in time and can be displayed in multiple timezones.</li>
<li><a href="http://daylight-savings-time.info/">Daylight Saving Time info</a> shows a graph of time difference versus time for any pair of locations.</li>
<li><a href="http://worldtime.io/">worldtime.io</a> also contains data about time zone boundaries; it supports queries via place names and shows location maps.</li>
<li><a href="http://simpletimerclocks.mozdev.org/">Simple Timer + Clocks</a> is a Firefox add-on which uses a timezone data file generated from the tz data files.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Other time zone database formats</h2>
<ul>
<li>The <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5545"> Internet Calendaring and Scheduling Core Object Specification (iCalendar)</a>, Internet RFC 5445 covers time zone data; see its VTIMEZONE calendar component. <a href="http://calconnect.org/">CalConnect, The Calendaring and Scheduling Consortium</a> is promoting further work in this area. <a href="http://calconnect.org/publications/icalendartimezoneproblemsandrecommendationsv1.0.pdf">iCalendar TIMEZONE Problems and Recommendations</a> offers guidelines and recommendations for the use of VTIMEZONE and <code>tz</code>.</li>
<li>CalConnect's <a href="http://calconnect.org/tc-timezone.shtml">TIMEZONE Technical Committee</a> has developed a <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-douglass-timezone-service-08">draft timezone service protocol</a>. The committee's earlier <a href="http://calconnect.org/publications/timezoneregistryandservicerecommendationsv1.0.pdf">Timezone Registry and Service Recommendations</a> discusses a strategy for defining and deploying a time zone registration process that would establish unique names for each version of each <code>tz</code> zone, along with a polygonal representation of the geographical area corresponding to the zone.</li>
<li>The <a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-calendar/">www-rdf-calendar</a> list discusses <a href="http://www.w3.org/RDF/">RDF</a>-based calendar and group scheduling systems, and has a <a href="http://www.w3.org/2002/12/cal/#tzd">workspace on time zone data</a> converted from <code>tz</code>. An earlier <a href="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/foo">schema</a> was sketched out.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Other <code>tz</code> compilers</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/vzic/">Vzic iCalendar Timezone Converter</a> describes a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_%28programming_language%29">C</a> program that compiles <code>tz</code> source into iCalendar-compatible VTIMEZONE files. Vzic is freely available under the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GNU General Public License (GPL)</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/tzical">tziCal – tz database conversion utility</a> is like Vzic, except for the <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework">.NET framework</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://search.cpan.org/dist/DateTime-TimeZone/">DateTime::TimeZone</a> contains a script <code>parse_olson</code> that compiles <code>tz</code> source into <a href="http://www.perl.org/">Perl</a> modules. It is part of the Perl <a href="http://datetime.perl.org/">DateTime Project</a>, which is freely available under both the GPL and the Perl Artistic License. DateTime::TimeZone also contains a script <code>tests_from_zdump</code> that generates test cases for each clock transition in the <code>tz</code> database.</li>
<li><a href="http://icu-project.org/">International Components for Unicode (ICU)</a> contains C/C++ and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_%28programming_language%29">Java</a> libraries for internationalization that has a compiler from <code>tz</code> source into an ICU-specific format. ICU is freely available under a BSD-style license.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.joda.org/joda-time/">Joda Time – Java date and time API</a> contains a class <code>org.joda.time.tz.ZoneInfoCompiler</code> that compiles <code>tz</code> source into a Joda-specific binary format. Joda Time is freely available under a BSD-style license.</li>
<li><a href="http://nodatime.org/">Noda Time – Date and time API for .NET</a> is similar to Joda Time, but for the .NET framework instead of Java. It is freely available under the <a href="http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0">Apache License</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/mde/timezone-js">TimezoneJS.Date</a> is a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript">JavaScript</a> library that parses <code>tz</code> source files and interprets time stamps using an API that is upward compatible with standard JavaScript Dates. It is freely available under the Apache License.</li>
<li><a href="http://pytz.sourceforge.net">pytz – World Timezone Definitions for Python</a> compiles <code>tz</code> source into <a href="http://python.org/">Python</a>. It is freely available under a BSD-style license.</li>
<li><a href="http://tzinfo.rubyforge.org/">TZInfo – Ruby Timezone Library</a> compiles <code>tz</code> source into <a href="http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/">Ruby</a>. It is freely available under the MIT license.</li>
<li>The <a href="http://www.squeaksource.com/Chronos/">Chronos Date/Time Library</a> is a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smalltalk">Smalltalk</a> class library that compiles <code>tz</code> source into a time zone repository whose format is either proprietary or an <a href="http://www.w3.org/XML/">XML</a>-encoded representation.</li>
<li>Starting with version 8.5, <a href="http://tcl.tk/">Tcl</a> contains a developer-oriented parser that compiles <code>tz</code> source into text files, along with a runtime that can read those files. Tcl is freely available under a BSD-style license.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Other <code>tz</code> binary file readers</h2>
<ul>
<li>The <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/">GNU C Library</a> has an independent, thread-safe implementation of a <code>tz</code> binary file reader. This library is freely available under the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lesser.html"> GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)</a>, and is widely used in GNU/Linux systems.</li>
<li><a href="http://bmsi.com/java/#TZ">ZoneInfo.java</a> is a <code>tz</code> binary file reader written in Java. It is freely available under the LGPL.</li>
<li>Tcl, mentioned above, also contains a <code>tz</code> binary file reader.</li>
<li><a href="http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?DateTime::TimeZone::Tzfile">DateTime::TimeZone::Tzfile</a> is a <code>tz</code> binary file reader written in Perl. It is freely available under the same terms as Perl (dual GPL and Artistic license).</li>
<li>The public-domain <a href="https://github.com/dbaron/tz.js">tz.js</a> library contains a Python tool that converts <code>tz</code> binary data into <a href="http://www.json.org/">JSON</a>-format data suitable for use in its JavaScript library for time zone conversion. Dates before 1970 are not supported.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Other <code>tz</code>-based time zone software</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://foxclocks.org/">FoxClocks</a> is an extension for <a href="http://google.com/chrome">Google Chrome</a> and for <a href="http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Toolkit_API">Mozilla Toolkit</a> applications like <a href="http://mozilla.com/firefox">Firefox</a> and <a href="http://mozilla.com/thunderbird">Thunderbird</a>. It displays multiple clocks in the application window, and has a mapping interface to <a href="http://earth.google.com/">Google Earth</a>. It is freely available under the GPL.</li>
<li><a href="http://users.skynet.be/Peter.Verthez/projects/intclock/">International clock (intclock)</a> is a multi-timezone clock for GNU/Linux and similar systems. It is freely available under the GPL.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/java/overview/index.html">Oracle Java</a> releases since 1.4 contain a copy of a subset of a recent <code>tz</code> database in a Java-specific format.</li>
<li><a href="http://kimmo.suominen.com/sw/timezone/">Time Zone</a> is a <a href="http://wordpress.org/">WordPress</a> plugin. It is freely available under a BSD-style license.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.relativedata.com/time-zone-master">Time Zone Master</a> is a Microsoft Windows clock program that can automatically download, compile and use the <code>tzdata<var>D</var>.tar.gz</code> files as they are released. The Basic version is free.</li>
<li><a href="http://veladg.com/velaterra.html">VelaTerra</a> is a Mac OS X program. Its developers <a href="http://veladg.com/tzoffer.html">offer free licenses</a> to <code>tz</code> contributors.</li>
<li><a href="http://worldtimeexplorer.com/">World Time Explorer</a> is a Microsoft Windows program.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Other time zone databases</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.astro.com/cgi/aq.cgi">Atlas Query</a> is Astrodienst's Web version of Shanks and Pottenger's time zone history atlases published in both <a href="http://astrocom.com/astrology-products/software/acs-atlas-software">computer</a> and book form (<a href="http://www.astrocom.com/astrology/books/american-atlas">one volume for the U.S.</a>, and <a href="http://www.astrocom.com/astrology/books/international-atlas">one for other locations</a>) by <a href="http://astrocom.com/">Astro Computing Services</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://worldtime.com/">WORLDTIME: interactive atlas, time info, public holidays</a> contains information on local time, sunrise and sunset, and public holidays in several hundred cities around the world.</li>
<li><a href="http://worldtimeserver.com/">World Time Server</a> is another time zone database.</li>
<li><a href="http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/tzones.html">World Time Zones</a> contains data from the Time Service Department of the US Naval Observatory, used as the source for the <code>usno*</code> files in the <code>tz</code> distribution.</li>
<li>The <a href="http://www.iata.org/publications/Pages/ssim.aspx">Standard Schedules Information Manual</a> of the <a href="http://iata.org/index.htm">International Air Transport Association</a> gives current time zone rules for airports served by commercial aviation.</li>
<li>Some Microsoft Windows versions contain time zone information in an undocumented format, with IDs that can be mapped to <code>TZ</code> values using the <a href="http://unicode.org/cldr/charts/supplemental/zone_tzid.html">Zone → Tzid table</a> maintained by the CLDR data mentioned below.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Maps</h2>
<ul>
<li>The <a href="https://www.cia.gov/">United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)</a> publishes a <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/graphics/ref_maps/physical/pdf/standard_time_zones_of_the_world.pdf">time zone map</a>; the <a href="http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/world.html">Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection</a> of the University of Texas at Austin has copies of recent editions. The pictorial quality is good, but the maps do not indicate summer time, and parts of the data are a few years out of date.</li>
<li><a href="http://worldtimezone.com/">Current time around the world and standard time zones map of the world</a> has several fancy time zone maps; it covers Russia particularly well. The maps' pictorial quality is not quite as good as the CIA's but the maps are more up to date.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Time zone boundaries</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://efele.net/maps/tz/">TZ timezones maps</a> contains <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapefile">shapefiles</a> of sets of <code>tz</code> regions.</li>
<li><a href="http://derickrethans.nl/what-time-is-it.html">What Time is It Here?</a> applies <a href="http://www.mongodb.org/">MongoDB</a> geospatial query operators to shapefiles' data.</li>
<li><a href="http://statoids.com/statoids.html">Administrative Divisions of Countries ("Statoids")</a> contains lists of political subdivision data related to time zones.</li>
<li><a href="http://home.telfort.nl/%7Et876506/Multizones.html">Time zone boundaries for multizone countries</a> summarizes legal boundaries between time zones within countries.</li>
<li>Manifold.net's <a href="http://manifold.net/info/freestuff.shtml">Free Stuff for Manifold System Users</a> includes a Manifold-format map of world time zone boundaries distributed under the GPL.</li>
<li>The US Geological Survey's National Atlas of the United States publishes the <a href="http://nationalatlas.gov/mld/timeznp.html">Time Zones of the United States</a> in the public domain.</li>
<li>The GeoCommunity lists several commercial sources for <a href="http://spatialnews.geocomm.com/features/timezones/">International Time Zones and Time Zone Data</a>.</li>
<li>A ship within the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_waters">territorial waters</a> of any nation uses that nation's time. In international waters, time zone boundaries are meridians 15° apart, except that UTC−12 and UTC+12 are each 7.5° wide and are separated by the 180° meridian (not by the International Date Line, which is for land and territorial waters only). A captain can change ship's clocks any time after entering a new time zone; midnight changes are common.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Civil time concepts and history</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://physics.nist.gov/GenInt/Time/time.html">A Walk through Time</a> surveys the evolution of timekeeping.</li>
<li><a href="http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/">About Daylight Saving Time – History, rationale, laws & dates</a> is an overall history of DST.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/timezone/">Working with Time Zones</a> contains guidelines and best practices for software applications that deal with civil time.</li>
<li><a href="http://energy.ca.gov/daylightsaving.html">Saving Time, Saving Energy</a> discusses a primary justification for DST.</li>
<li><a href="http://seizethedaylight.com/dst/">A Brief History of Daylight Saving Time</a> summarizes some of the contentious history of DST.</li>
<li><a href="http://toi.inrim.it/uk/toi.html">The Time of Internet</a> describes time zones and daylight saving time, with diagrams. The time zone map is out of date, however.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/%7Egent0113/idl/idl.htm">A History of the International Date Line</a> tells the story of the most important time zone boundary.</li>
<li><a href="http://statoids.com/tconcept.html">Basic Time Zone Concepts</a> discusses terminological issues behind time zones.</li>
</ul>
<h2>National histories of legal time</h2>
<p>Australia</p>
<p>The Parliamentary Library has commissioned <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/library/pubs/rn/2006-07/07rn13.pdf">research note on daylight saving time in Australia</a>. The Bureau of Meteorology publishes a list of <a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/dst_times.shtml">Implementation Dates of Daylight Savings Time within Australia</a>.</p>
<p>Belgium</p>
<p>The Royal Observatory of Belgium maintains a table of <a href="http://www.astro.oma.be/GENERAL/INFO/nli001a.html">time in Belgium (in Dutch)</a>.</p>
<p>Brazil</p>
<p>The Time Service Department of the National Observatory records <a href="http://pcdsh01.on.br/DecHV.html">Brazil's daylight saving time decrees (in Portuguese)</a>.</p>
<p>Canada</p>
<p>National Research Council Canada publishes current and some older information about <a href="http://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/eng/services/time/time_zones.html">time zones & daylight saving time</a>.</p>
<p>Chile</p>
<p>The Chilean Hydrographic and Oceanographic Service publishes a <a href="http://www.horaoficial.cl/historia_hora.html">history of Chile's official time (in Spanish)</a>.</p>
<p>Germany</p>
<p>The National Institute for Science and Technology maintains the <a href="http://www.ptb.de/cms/en/fachabteilungen/abt4/fb-44/ag-441/realisation-of-legal-time-in-germany.html">Realisation of Legal Time in Germany</a>.</p>
<p>Israel</p>
<p>The Interior Ministry periodically issues <a href="ftp://ftp.cs.huji.ac.il/pub/tz/announcements">announcements (in Hebrew)</a>.</p>
<p>Mexico</p>
<p>The Investigation and Analysis Service of the Mexican Library of Congress has published a <a href="http://www.diputados.gob.mx/bibliot/publica/inveyana/polisoc/horver/">history of Mexican local time (in Spanish)</a>.</p>
<p>Malaysia</p>
<p>See Singapore below.</p>
<p>Netherlands</p>
<p><a href="http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/%7Egent0113/wettijd/wettijd.htm">Legal time in the Netherlands (in Dutch)</a> covers the history of local time in the Netherlands from ancient times.</p>
<p>New Zealand</p>
<p>The Department of Internal Affairs maintains a brief <a href="http://www.dia.govt.nz/Daylight-Saving-History">History of Daylight Saving</a>. The privately-maintained <a href="http://astrologyschool.com/nztime.html">History of New Zealand time</a> has more details.</p>
<p>Singapore</p>
<p><a href="http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/teaching/timezone.html">Why is Singapore in the "Wrong" Time Zone?</a> details the history of legal time in Singapore and Malaysia.</p>
<p>United Kingdom</p>
<p><a href="http://www.polyomino.org.uk/british-time/">History of legal time in Britain</a> discusses in detail the country with perhaps the best-documented history of clock adjustments. The National Physical Laboratory also maintains an <a href="http://www.npl.co.uk/educate-explore/what-is-time/archive-of-summer-time-dates-1916-2006">Archive of Summer time dates</a>.</p>
<h2>Precision timekeeping</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/5965-7984E.pdf">The Science of Timekeeping</a> is a thorough introduction to the theory and practice of precision timekeeping.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.ntp.org/">NTP: The Network Time Protocol</a> discusses how to synchronize clocks of Internet hosts.</li>
<li><a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4833">Timezone Options for DHCP</a> (Internet RFC 4833) specifies a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Host_Configuration_Protocol">DHCP</a> option for a server to configure a client's time zone and daylight saving settings automatically.</li>
<li><a href="http://gauss.gge.unb.ca/GMT.UT.and.the.RGO.html">A Few Facts Concerning GMT, UT, and the RGO</a> answers questions like "What is the difference between GMT and UTC?"</li>
<li><a href="http://www.cv.nrao.edu/%7Erfisher/Ephemerides/times.html">Astronomical Times</a> explains more abstruse astronomical time scales like TDT, TCG, and TDB. <a href="http://www.ucolick.org/%7Esla/leapsecs/timescales.html">Time Scales</a> goes into more detail, particularly for historical variants.</li>
<li>The <a href="http://iau.org/">IAU</a>'s <a href="http://www.iausofa.org/">SOFA</a> initiative publishes C and Fortran code for converting among time scales like TAI, TDB, TDT and UTC.</li>
<li><a href="http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/basics/bsf2-3.php">Basics of Space Flight – Reference Systems – Time Conventions</a> briefly explains interplanetary space flight timekeeping.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/mars24/help/notes.html">Technical Notes on Mars Solar Time as Adopted by the Mars24 Sunclock</a> briefly describes Mars Coordinated Time (MTC) and the diverse local time scales used by each landed mission on Mars.</li>
<li><a href="http://leapsecond.com/">LeapSecond.com</a> is dedicated not only to leap seconds but to precise time and frequency in general. It covers the state of the art in amateur timekeeping, and how the art has progressed over the past few decades.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.iers.org/IERS/EN/Publications/Bulletins/bulletins.html">IERS Bulletins</a> contains official publications of the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, which decides when leap seconds occur.</li>
<li>The <a href="http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs">Leap Second Discussion List</a> covers <a href="http://gauss.gge.unb.ca/papers.pdf/gpsworld.november99.pdf">McCarthy and Klepczynski's proposal to discontinue leap seconds</a>, discussed further in <a href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/%7Emgk25/time/metrologia-leapsecond.pdf">The leap second: its history and possible future</a>. <a href="http://www.ucolick.org/%7Esla/leapsecs/">UTC might be redefined without Leap Seconds</a> gives pointers on this contentious issue.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Time notation</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/%7Emgk25/iso-time.html">A summary of the international standard date and time notation</a> is a good summary of <a href="http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail?csnumber=40874">ISO 8601:2004 – Data elements and interchange formats – Information interchange – Representation of dates and times</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-2/#dateTime">XML Schema: Datatypes – dateTime</a> specifies a format inspired by ISO 8601 that is in common use in XML data.</li>
<li><a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5322">Internet Message Format</a> (Internet RFC 5322) §3.3 specifies the time notation used in email and <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2616">HTTP</a> headers.</li>
<li><a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3339">Date and Time on the Internet: Timestamps</a> (Internet RFC 3339) specifies an ISO 8601 profile for use in new Internet protocols.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.hackcraft.net/web/datetime/">Date & Time Formats on the Web</a> surveys web- and Internet-oriented date and time formats.</li>
<li><a href="http://exit109.com/%7Eghealton/y2k/yrexamples.html">The Best of Dates, the Worst of Dates</a> covers many problems encountered by software developers when handling dates and time stamps.</li>
<li>The <a href="http://unicode.org/cldr/">Unicode Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR) Project</a> has localizations for time zone names, abbreviations, identifiers, and formats. For example, it contains French translations for "Eastern European Summer Time", "EEST", and "Bucharest". <a href="http://unicode.org/cldr/charts/by_type/index.html">By-Type Chart</a> shows these values for many locales. ICU contains a mechanism for using this data.</li>
<li>Alphabetic time zone abbreviations should not be used as unique identifiers for UTC offsets as they are ambiguous in practice. For example, "EST" denotes 5 hours behind UTC in English-speaking North America, but it denotes 10 or 11 hours ahead of UTC in Australia; and French-speaking North Americans prefer "HNE" to "EST". For POSIX the <code>tz</code> database contains English abbreviations for all time stamps but in many cases these are merely inventions of the database maintainers.</li>
<li>Numeric time zone abbreviations typically count hours east of UTC, e.g., <code>+09</code> for Japan and <code>-10</code> for Hawaii. However, the POSIX <code>TZ</code> environment variable uses the opposite convention. For example, one might use <code>TZ="JST-9"</code> and <code>TZ="HST10"</code> for Japan and Hawaii, respectively. If the <code>tz</code> database is available, it is usually better to use settings like <code>TZ="Asia/Tokyo"</code> and <code>TZ="Pacific/Honolulu"</code> instead, as this should avoid confusion, handle old time stamps better, and insulate you better from any future changes to the rules. One should never set POSIX <code>TZ</code> to a value like <code>"GMT-9"</code>, though, since this would falsely claim that local time is nine hours ahead of UTC and the time zone is called "GMT".</li>
</ul>
<h2>Related indexes</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.iana.com/time-zones/repository/tz-art.htm">Time and the Arts</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.dmoz.org/Reference/Time/">Open Directory – Reference: Time</a></li>
<li><a href="http://dir.yahoo.com/Science/Measurements_and_Units/Time">Yahoo! Directory > Science > Measurements and Units > Time</a></li>
</ul>