Eastern Time Zone
The Eastern Time Zone (ET) of the Western Hemisphere falls mostly along the east coast of Northern America and the west coast of South America. Its time offset is UTC-5 during standard time and UTC-4 during daylight saving time. The clock time in this zone is based on the mean solar time of the 75th degree meridian west of the Greenwich Observatory.
In the United States and Canada, this time zone is generally called Eastern Time (ET). Specifically, it is Eastern Standard Time (EST) when observing standard time (Winter), and Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) when observing daylight saving time (Summer).
The 1966 Uniform Time Act in the USA meant that EDT was instituted on the last Sunday in April, starting in 1966, through out most of the USA and Canada. [1] EST would be re-instituted on the last Sunday in October. The act was amended to make the first Sunday in April the beginning of EDT as of 1987.[1] In some areas, starting in 2007, the local time changes at 02:00 EST to 03:00 EDT on the second Sunday in March and returns at 02:00 EDT to 01:00 EST on the first Sunday in November[1]. On POSIX compliant systems, one can set this timezone by setting the environment variable TZ to the value EST5EDT4,M3.2.0,M11.1.0.
Usage
North America
Canada
In Canada, the following provinces and territories are part of the Eastern Time Zone:
- Ontario (excluding areas west of Thunder Bay but including Atikokan)
- Quebec (excluding far eastern Côte-Nord and the Magdalen Is.)
- East-central Nunavut (including part of Melville Pen. and most of Ellesmere and Baffin Is., including Iqaluit; Southampton Island does not observe DST)
United States
In the United States, the following states are part of the Eastern Time Zone in their entirety:
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Parts of several other states use Eastern Time as well:
- nearly all of Florida except for the west border with Alabama
- most of Indiana (all except the Evansville metropolitan area and the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois)
- all of Kentucky from the Louisville metropolitan area eastward
- all of Michigan except the four Upper Peninsula counties that border Wisconsin (Gogebic, Iron, Dickinson, Menominee)
- the eastern third of Tennessee, almost but not precisely coterminous with the region legally designated as East Tennessee
- some towns in eastern Alabama, including Phenix City, Smiths Station, Lanett, and Valley, observe Eastern Time, although they are officially in the Central Time Zone. This is primarily because they are part of the Columbus, Georgia media market.[2]
Other countries
The following countries that use Eastern Time Zone include:
- Mexico - the eastern state of Quintana Roo also followed EST for a brief period in the 1990s
- Panama
- Jamaica
- Haiti
- Cuba
- the Bahamas
- Not all Caribbean countries observe Daylight saving time. Most Eastern Caribbean states are in the UTC-4 timezone, which is known in North America as the Atlantic Time Zone and is the equivalent of EDT and one hour ahead of EST.
South America
In South America this time zone is observed in:
Major Metropolitan Areas
See also
- Time zone
- Eastern Daylight Time
- Time in Indiana
- Atlantic Standard Time Zone
- Newfoundland Standard Time Zone
Sources
- The official U.S. time for the Eastern Time Zone
- World time zone map
- U.S. time zone map
- History of U.S. time zones and UTC conversion
- Canada time zone map
- Time zones for major world cities
- Official U.S. time for the Eastern Time Zone
- Official times across Canada
References
- ^ a b c
Prerau, David (2006). "Early adoption and U.S. Law" (HTML). Daylight Savings Time. Web Exhibit. Retrieved 2007-04-23.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ McDearman, Brian (2006-08-13). "Parts of Eastern Alabama split between 2 time zones". The Decatur Daily. Retrieved 2006-12-18.