United States Time Zones
Standard time zones in the United States are currently defined at the federal level by law 15 USC §260. The federal law also establishes the transition dates and times at which daylight saving time occurs, if observed. It is ultimately the authority of the Secretary of Transportation, in coordination with the states, to determine which regions will observe which of the standard time zones and if they will observe daylight saving time. As of August 9, 2007, the standard time zones are defined in terms of hourly offsets from UTC. Prior to this they were based upon the mean solar time at several meridians 15° apart west of Greenwich (GMT).
Only the full time zone names listed below are official; abbreviations are by common use conventions, and duplicated elsewhere in the world for different time zones.
The United States uses nine standard time zones. From east to west, they are:
- Atlantic Standard Time (AST)
- Eastern Standard Time (EST)
- Central Standard Time (CST)
- Mountain Standard Time (MST)
- Pacific Standard Time (PST)
- Alaskan Standard Time (AKST)
- Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time (HST)
- Samoa Standard Time (UTC−11)
- Chamorro Standard Time (UTC+10)
View the standard time zone boundaries here.
Read more about this topic: Time In The United States
Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states, time and/or zones:
“In one notable instance, where the United States Army and a hundred years of persuasion failed, a highway has succeeded. The Seminole Indians surrendered to the Tamiami Trail. From the Everglades the remnants of this race emerged, soon after the trail was built, to set up their palm-thatched villages along the road and to hoist tribal flags as a lure to passing motorists.”
—For the State of Florida, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“The United States must be neutral in fact as well as in name.... We must be impartial in thought as well as in action ... a nation that neither sits in judgment upon others nor is disturbed in her own counsels and which keeps herself fit and free to do what is honest and disinterested and truly serviceable for the peace of the world.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“I would like to be the first ambassador to the United States from the United States.”
—Barbara Mikulski (b. 1936)
“The first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon the mind is that of nature. Every day, the sun; and after sunset, night and her stars. Ever the winds blow; ever the grass grows.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The technological landscape of the present day has enfranchised its own electorates—the inhabitants of marketing zones in the consumer goods society, television audiences and news magazine readerships... vote with money at the cash counter rather than with the ballot paper at the polling booth.”
—J.G. (James Graham)