The

time zone A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal, Commerce, commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between Country, countries and their Administrative division, subdivisions instead of ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

Central European Time Central European Time (CET) is a standard time of Central, and parts of Western Europe, which is one hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The UTC offset, time offset from UTC can be written as UTC+01:00. It is used in most parts of Eur ...

(, ''MEZ''; UTC+01:00) and

Central European Summer Time Central European Summer Time (CEST, UTC+02:00), 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 E ...

(, ''MESZ''; UTC+02:00).

Daylight saving time Daylight saving time (DST), also referred to as daylight savings time, daylight time (Daylight saving time in the United States, United States and Daylight saving time in Canada, Canada), or summer time (British Summer Time, United Kingdom, ...

is observed from the last Sunday in March (02:00 CET) to the last Sunday in October (03:00 CEST). The doubled hour during the switch back to standard time is named 2A (02:00 to 03:00 CEST) and 2B (02:00 to 03:00 CET).

IANA time zone database

The

IANA time zone database The tz database is a collaborative compilation of information about the world's time zones and rules for observing daylight saving time, primarily intended for use with computer programs and operating systems. Paul Eggert has been its editor an ...

contains two zones for Germany, "Europe/Berlin" and "Europe/Busingen", although in 1945, the

Trizone The Bizone () or Bizonia was the combination of the United States, American and the British occupation zone in Germany, British occupation zones on 1 January 1947 during the Allied-occupied Germany, occupation of Germany after World War II. Wi ...

did not follow

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

's switch to midsummer time.

had been politically divided into

East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

and

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

at and after the start of the

Unix epoch Unix time is a date and time representation widely used in computing. It measures time by the number of non-leap seconds that have elapsed since 00:00:00 UTC on 1 January 1970, the Unix epoch. For example, at midnight on 1 January 2010, ...

, which is the date from which the tz database wants to record correct information. The database aims to include at least one zone for every

ISO 3166-1 ISO 3166-1 (''Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions – Part 1: Country code'') is a standard defining codes for the names of countries, dependent territories, and special areas of geographical interest. It i ...

alpha-2 country code. This list was first issued in 1997, after the reunification of Germany in 1990. Hence only the unified Germany is listed. The zone Europe/Busingen was created in the 2013a release of the tz database, because since the

Unix time Unix time is a date and time representation widely used in computing. It measures time by the number of non-leap seconds that have elapsed since 00:00:00 Coordinated Universal Time, UTC on 1 January 1970, the Unix Epoch (computing), epoc ...

epoch in 1970, Büsingen has shared clocks with

Zurich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

. Büsingen did not observe DST in 1980 like the rest of West Germany, but did so from 1981 after

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

adopted DST.

History

was first introduced during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

by the

German Empire The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...

in the years 1916 to 1918. After the end of the war and the proclamation of the

Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...

in November 1918, daylight saving time ceased to be observed. It was used again 1940–1949 (from 1945 differently in the West and East) and introduced again from 1980. West and East Germany had the same time and DST from 1950 until unification. In 1996, daylight saving time was harmonised throughout the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

by Directive 2000/84/EC, which moved the end of DST to the last Sunday in October. In 1980 the exclave Büsingen did not use DST in order to keep to the same time as Switzerland.

References

External links

Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt – Legal Time

* ttp://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/sozv/ Sommerzeitverordnung (''Summer Time Ordinance'')
German Time Act
{{Europe topic, Time in Geography of Germany

IANA time zone database

History

See also

References

External links