Time in Alaska

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alaska is officially covered by two time zones, as described below:

The town of Hyder, because it essentially is a single town split by the border between the United States and Canada, unofficially observes Pacific Time including DST (UTC−08:00, DST UTC−07:00) like its neighbor Stewart, British Columbia, with the exception of the U.S. Post Office (because it is a federal facility).[1]

History[]

As part of Russian America, Alaska used the Julian calendar and the same day of the week as Asia. In 1867, Alaska became a United States territory (Alaska Purchase), and began using the Gregorian calendar and the same day of the week as the Americas. The switch was achieved by repeating the same day of the week and skipping 11 days of the month, so that the purchase date of Friday, October 6 (Julian) was followed by Friday, October 18 (Gregorian).[2]

Before time zones were introduced, every place used local observation of the sun to set its clocks, which meant that every location used a different local mean time based on its longitude. For example, Sitka, the capital of Alaska at the time, at longitude 135°20′W, had a local time equivalent to UTC+14:59 under Russia and UTC−09:01 under the United States.[3]

On August 20, 1900, time zones were introduced in Alaska, and the territory was divided into four time zones:

In 1942–1945, all of the United States, including Alaska, added one hour compared to other years. In 1967, daylight saving time was introduced uniformly in the United States, and Alaska began observing it in 1968.[6]

In 1983, Alaska switched to two time zones. Most areas moved to UTC−09:00, which was renamed Alaska Time Zone. Most of the Aleutian islands, previously on Bering Time, moved to UTC−10:00, renamed Hawaii–Aleutian Time Zone.[9] One hour is added for daylight saving time during spring and summer.

tz database[]

The tz database version 2021e contains seven time zones for Alaska for historical reasons. Only three (America/Adak, America/Anchorage, and America/Metlakatla) are currently in use.

CC Coordinates TZ Comments UTC offset UTC offset DST Notes
US +611305−1495401 America/Anchorage Alaska (most areas) −09:00 −08:00
US +581807−1342511 America/Juneau Alaska - Juneau area −09:00 −08:00
US +571035−1351807 America/Sitka Alaska - Sitka area −09:00 −08:00
US +593249−1394338 America/Yakutat Alaska - Yakutat −09:00 −08:00
US +643004−1652423 America/Nome Alaska (west) −09:00 −08:00
US +515248−1763929 America/Adak Aleutian Islands −10:00 −09:00
US +550737−1313435 America/Metlakatla Alaska - Annette Island −09:00 −08:00

References[]

  1. ^ "Exceptions, Oddities and Notes". OnTimeZone.com. Retrieved 2012-06-17.
  2. ^ When the Day After Friday is Friday, Now I Know, May 9, 2017.
  3. ^ Time Zone in Sitka, Alaska, USA, Timeanddate.com.
  4. ^ Time Zone in Nome, Alaska, USA, Timeanddate.com.
  5. ^ Time Zone in Adak, Alaska, USA, Timeanddate.com.
  6. ^ a b Time Zone in Anchorage, Alaska, USA, Timeanddate.com.
  7. ^ Time Zone in Yakutat, Alaska, USA, Timeanddate.com.
  8. ^ Time Zone in Juneau, Alaska, USA, Timeanddate.com.
  9. ^ Wallace Turner (1983-11-01). "Alaska's four time zones now two". The New York Times. Retrieved 2017-09-21. The big change was in Juneau, Ketchikan and Sitka, the major towns in southeast Alaska, where clocks shifted back two hours to Yukon time. After decades on Pacific time, this region will now be an hour earlier, as will Anchorage and Fairbanks, which formerly were two hours earlier than Pacific time.
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