The
time in China
follows a single standard
time offset
of
UTC+08:00
(eight hours ahead of
Coordinated Universal Time
) based on the
National Time Service Center
of
Chinese Academy of Sciences
located in
Mount Li
,
Lintong District
, Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province, even though the country spans five geographical
time zones
. The official national standard
time
is called
Beijing Time
(
BJT
,
simplified Chinese
:
北京??
;
traditional Chinese
:
北京時間
;
pinyin
:
B?ij?ng shiji?n
) domestically because it is based on the
120th meridian east
, where
Beijing City
is located,
[1]
[2]
and
China Standard Time
(
CST
) internationally.
[3]
Daylight saving time
has not been observed since 1991.
[4]
China
Standard Time (UTC+8) is consistent across
Mainland China
,
Hong Kong
,
Macau
,
Taiwan
, as well as equivalent with
Philippines
,
Singapore
,
Brunei
, most of
Mongolia
,
Malaysia
,
Irkutsk Time
(Russia),
Western Australia
and
Central Indonesia
.
History
[
edit
]
In the 1870s, the Shanghai Xujiahui Observatory was constructed by a French Catholic missionary. In 1880s officials in
Shanghai French Concession
started to provide a time announcement service using the Shanghai Mean Solar Time provided by the aforementioned observatory for ships into and out of
Shanghai
. By the end of 19th century, the time standard provided by the observatory had been switched to
GMT
+08:00.
[5]
The practice has spread to other coastal ports, and in 1902 the "Coastal Time" was proposed to be the universal time zone for all the coastal ports in China. However, the time zone for the rest of China remained undetermined.
Until 1913, the official time standard for the whole of China was still the
apparent solar time
of Beijing, the capital of the country at the time. Starting in 1914, the
Republic of China
government began adopting the Beijing Local Mean Solar Time as the official time standard. By 1918, five standard time zones had been proposed by the Central Observatory of
Beiyang government
of Republic of China, including the Kunlun (
UTC+05:30
), Sinkiang-Tibet (
UTC+06:00
), Kansu-Szechwan (
UTC+07:00
), Chungyuan (
UTC+08:00
), and Changpai (
UTC+08:30
).
[5]
After the defeat of
Beiyang government
in 1928, the mission of the Central Observatory was moved to Nanjing, and the reference time standard used for the construction of
traditional Chinese Calendar
was shifted from Beijing Mean Solar Time to
UTC+08:00
.
[5]
In the 1930s, the proposed five time zones had not been fully observed, causing regions in inner China area to adopt their own time standards, resulting in chaos. On 9 March 1939, when the Ministry of the Interior organized a Standard Time Conference in Chongqing, it was decided to adopt the five time zone proposal with slight modification of their borders starting from 1 June, however it was also decided that the entire country would use the Kansu-Szechwan Time (
UTC+07:00
) during the
Second Sino-Japanese War
which began at the time.
[5]
Following the end of
World War II
, the five time zone system was resumed, although there is little information about the historical usage of time in the
Kunlun
and
Changpai
zones.
[
citation needed
]
A further refined system with adjustment to zone assignment in the Northwest part of
Gansu
was announced in 1947 for adoption in 1948. However, as the
Chinese Civil War
came to its end in 1949?1950, regional governments under the influence of the
Chinese Communist Party
(CCP), other than those in Xinjiang and Tibet, switched to use the same time as Beijing, which is
UTC+08:00
, and is later known as
Beijing Time
or
China Standard Time
.
[5]
There are two independent sources that claim the CCP, and/or the People's Republic of China, were using apparent solar time for Beijing Time before the period between 27 September 1949 and 6 October 1949, and they adopted the time of
UTC+08:00
within that period of time, but the claim is dubious.
[6]
Time zone changes in Tibet are undocumented, but Beijing Time was in use until at least the mid-1950s. Between 1969 and 1986, the time zone was switched repeatedly between Xinjiang Time (
UTC+06:00
) and Beijing Time.
[5]
Daylight saving time
was observed from 1945 to 1948, and from 1986 to 1991.
[5]
In 1997 and 1999,
Hong Kong
and
Macau
were transferred to China from the
United Kingdom
and
Portugal
respectively, being established as
special administrative regions
. Although the sovereignty of the SARs belongs to China, they retain their own policies regarding time zones for historical reasons. Due to their geographical locations, both are within the
UTC+08:00
time zone, which is the same as the national standard, Beijing time.
Geography
[
edit
]
As an illustration of the wide range, the daylight hours (Beijing Time) for the seats of the westernmost (both including and not including
Xinjiang
due to local customs, see below) and easternmost counties, calculated for the year 2010, are shown here:
[7]
Division
|
Daylight time
|
Location
|
County
|
Province
|
1 January
|
1 July
|
Westernmost
|
Akto
[8]
|
Xinjiang
|
10:16 ? 19:44
|
07:34 ? 22:26
|
Westernmost (not including Xinjiang)
|
Zanda
[9]
|
Tibet
|
09:40 ? 19:48
|
07:39 ? 21:50
|
Easternmost
|
Fuyuan
[10]
|
Heilongjiang
|
06:54 ? 15:18
|
03:05 ? 19:08
|
The border with
Afghanistan
at the
Wakhjir Pass
has the most significant official change of clocks for any international land frontier:
UTC+08:00
in China to
UTC+04:30
in Afghanistan.
Regions with special time regulations
[
edit
]
Xinjiang
[
edit
]
In Xinjiang, two time standards are used in parallel, namely Beijing Time and
Xinjiang Time
.
[11]
[5]
Xinjiang Time, also known as Urumqi Time (
Chinese
:
??木???
;
pinyin
:
W?l?muqi Shiji?n
), is set due to its geographical location in the westernmost part of the country.
[12]
The time offset is
UTC+06:00
, which is two hours behind
Beijing
, and is shared with neighbouring
Kyrgyzstan
.
Some local Xinjiang authorities now use both time standards side by side.
[13]
[14]
Television stations schedule programmes in different time standards according to their nature.
[5]
The coexistence of two time zones within the same region causes some confusion among the local population, especially when inter-racial communication occurs. When a time is mentioned in conversation between Han and Uyghur, it is necessary to either explicitly make clear whether the time is in Xinjiang Time or Beijing Time, or convert the time according to the ethnicity of the other party.
[15]
[16]
[17]
The double time standard is particularly observable in
Xinjiang Television
, which schedules its Chinese channel according to Beijing time and its Uyghur and Kazakh channels according to Xinjiang time.
[18]
Regardless, Beijing Time users in Xinjiang usually schedule their daily activities two hours later than those who live in eastern China. As such, stores and offices in Xinjiang are commonly open from 10am to 7pm Beijing Time, which equals 8am to 5pm in Urumqi Time.
[19]
This is known as the work/rest time in Xinjiang.
[20]
In most areas of Xinjiang, the opening time of local authorities is additionally modified by shifting the morning session 30?60 minutes earlier and the afternoon session 30 minutes later to extend the lunch break for 60?90 minutes, so as to avoid the intense heat during noon time in the area during summer.
[14]
Hong Kong and Macau
[
edit
]
Hong Kong
and
Macau
maintain their own time authorities after transfer of sovereignty
in 1997
and 1999
respectively. The
Hong Kong Time
(Chinese:
香港時間
; Jyutping:
hoeng1 gong2 si4 gaan3
) and
Macau Standard Time
[21]
(Chinese:
澳門標準時間
; Jyutping:
ou3 mun2 biu1 zeon2 si4 gaan3
;
Portuguese
:
Hora Oficial de Macau
[22]
) are both
UTC+08:00
all year round, thus in line with Beijing time, and daylight saving time has not been used since 1979 in Hong Kong and 1980 in Macau.
[23]
[24]
In Hong Kong,
Greenwich Mean Time
was adopted as the basis in 1904, and UTC was adopted as a standard in 1972. Before that, local time was determined by astronomical observations at
Hong Kong Observatory
using a
6-inch Lee Equatorial telescope and a 3-inch Transit Circle
[
clarify
]
.
[25]
Taiwan
[
edit
]
Taiwan
, which is not governed under the authority of the People's Republic of China (see
political status of Taiwan
), also uses UTC+08:00, which corresponds well to its longitude.
IANA time zone database
[
edit
]
The territory of the
People's Republic of China
is covered in the
IANA time zone database
by the following zones. "Asia/Shanghai" is used instead of "Asia/Beijing" because Shanghai is the most populous location in the zone.
[26]
Columns marked with * are from the file
zone.tab
of the database.
Backward compatibility zone
[
edit
]
The following zones, including Asia/Kashgar, Asia/Chongqing, and Asia/Harbin, are kept in the "backzone" file of the IANA time zone database for backward compatibility.
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]
- Government departments responsible for time services