Your Current Date/Time
Major Cities
Understanding Time Zones
A time zone is a region of the globe that observes a uniform standard time for legal, commercial, and social purposes. Before the adoption of time zones, people used local solar time, which became problematic with the rise of railways and telecommunications. Today, the world is divided into 24 main time zones, each theoretically one hour apart.
What is UTC? The World's Time Standard
You'll often see time zones referenced by their offset from UTC, which stands for Coordinated Universal Time. UTC is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is not affected by Daylight Saving Time. For example, India's time zone (IST) is UTC+5:30, meaning it is 5 hours and 30 minutes ahead of UTC.
How to Use This World Clock
- Your Local Time: The top of the page always displays your current local time, detected from your device.
- Select a City: Use the search box to find any city or timezone. You can type a city name (e.g., "Paris"), a country ("Japan"), or a timezone identifier ("America/Los_Angeles").
- Major Cities: We display a curated list of major global cities with analog and digital clocks for a quick at-a-glance comparison.
Common Time Zone Acronyms
| Acronym | Full Name | UTC Offset |
|---|---|---|
| IST | India Standard Time | UTC+5:30 |
| GMT | Greenwich Mean Time | UTC+0:00 |
| EST / EDT | Eastern Standard / Daylight Time (North America) | UTC-5:00 / UTC-4:00 |
| PST / PDT | Pacific Standard / Daylight Time (North America) | UTC-8:00 / UTC-7:00 |
| JST | Japan Standard Time | UTC+9:00 |