The Atlantic Time Zone (AST) is a geographical region that keeps standard time by subtracting four hours from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), resulting in UTC-4; the rest of the year it observes daylight saving time by subtracting three hours (UTC-3). The clock time in this zone is based on the mean solar time of the 60th meridian west of the Greenwich Observatory.
In Canada, the provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia reckon time specifically as an offset of 4 hours from Greenwich Mean time (GMT-4). Prince Edward Island and small portions of Quebec (eastern Côte-Nord and the Magdalen Islands) are also part of the Atlantic Standard Time Zone. Officially, the entirety of Newfoundland and Labrador observes Newfoundland Standard Time, but in practice most of Labrador uses the Atlantic Standard Time Zone.
In the United States, no portion of the contiguous country is located in Atlantic Standard Time Zone, but for the territory of Puerto Rico.
Those portions of the Atlantic Standard Time Zone that participate in daylight saving time do so as Atlantic Daylight Time (ADT), which has one hour added to make it only three hours behind GMT (UTC-3).
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