Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

the standard time is the

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 ...

(CET). Norway observes Summer Time (''sommertid'',

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, ...

). The transition dates are the same as for other European countries.

Svalbard Svalbard ( , ), previously known as Spitsbergen or Spitzbergen, is a Norway, Norwegian archipelago that lies at the convergence of the Arctic Ocean with the Atlantic Ocean. North of continental Europe, mainland Europe, it lies about midway be ...

and

Jan Mayen Jan Mayen () is a Norway, 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: la ...

observe the same time as the mainland. 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 and Lofoten islands, then Vestfjorden and finally Salten and Saltfjellet, 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 contains one zone for the area with ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code NO (Norway) in the file zone.tab, 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 zone.tab of the IANA time zone database. 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 telegraphy is point-to-point distance communicating via sending electric signals over wire, a system primarily used from the 1840s until the late 20th century. It was the first electrical telecommunications system and the most wid ...

in 1855 between Kristiania (Oslo) and

Drammen Drammen () is a city and municipality in Buskerud county, 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 ...

, the local time of

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

was used for this purpose, until 1866 when it was replaced by Oslo local time, which was 7 minutes later. 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 (, ) is a city and municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestland county on the Western Norway, west coast of Norway. Bergen is the list of towns and cities in Norway, second-largest city in Norway after the capital Oslo. By May 20 ...

and

Stavanger Stavanger, officially the Stavanger Municipality, is a city and municipalities of Norway, municipality in Norway. It is the third largest city and third largest metropolitan area in Norway (through conurbation with neighboring Sandnes) and the ...

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, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

and

had adopted standard time, so also

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). 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 were either moved backward (east of 15°E), or forward (west of 15°E), except for Hadsel and Steigen 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