Africa, the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, spans across six different time zone offsets from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC): UTC−01:00 to UTC+04:00. [2] [3] As Africa straddles the equator and tropics, there is little change in daylight hours throughout the year [4] and as such daylight saving time is currently observed in only one country, Morocco, however it was also previously observed in several other countries. [5] [6]
Before the wide adoption of standard time zones, local mean time was widely used in railway time for train timetables and telegraphic time for telegraphy. [7] Local mean time is a solar time that corrects the variations of local apparent time by forming a uniform time scale at a specific longitude; [8] for instance, Liberia observed UTC−0:44:30 instead of an approximate offset such as UTC−01:00. [9] British Rhodesia (at the time administered by the private British South Africa Company) was the first area in Africa to adopt standard time, switching to UTC+02:30 on 1 August 1899 as the previous time standards proved problematic for the railway system. [10] Other countries followed suit, and by 1912, most Portuguese, [11] French and British territories had adopted a standard offset. [12] Liberia was the last country in Africa to adopt a standard offset, doing so on 7 January 1972. [13]
Names for the offsets vary by country and jurisdiction: [3] in Africa, UTC+01:00 is commonly known as " West Africa Time", however Algeria, [14] Morocco and Tunisia [15] designate the offset by its European name, " Central European Time"; UTC+02:00 – commonly known as " Central Africa Time" – is designated as " South African Standard Time" by Eswatini, Lesotho and South Africa, [16] whilst Egypt [17] and Libya [18] designate it by its European name " Eastern European Time". Cape Verde is the only country in Africa which observes UTC−01:00, where it is known as Cape Verde Time (CVT); thirteen countries observe UTC±00:00, fourteen [a] observe UTC+01:00, sixteen [a] observe UTC+02:00, nine observe UTC+03:00, and two ( Mauritius and Seychelles) observe UTC+04:00, where the offset is designated as Mauritius Time (MUT) [19] and Seychelles Time (SCT) [20] respectively. [3]
Before the wide adoption of standard time zones, local mean time, which is a solar time that corrects the variations of local apparent time by forming a uniform time scale at a specific longitude, [8] such as railway time for train timetables and telegraphic time for telegraphy, was widely used. [7] Due to the large size of the British company rule in Rhodesia, it meant Rhodesia observed three standards of time: UTC+01:30, +2:15 and +2:30; this was problematic for the railway system, so on 1 August 1899 the standard time zones UTC+02:30 was adopted nationwide, [10] consequently resulting in this being the first standard time in Africa. This would soon be followed by Egypt, which adopted standard time on 1 October 1900; [21] [22] Nigeria adopted standard time on 1 July 1905, [23] Seychelles in 1906, [24] Mauritius on 1 January 1907, [21] Togo in 1907, [12] Algeria on 11 March 1911 [9] and Tunisia on 12 April 1911. [21] Most Portuguese territories (including Cape Verde and Mozambique) adopted standard time on 26 May 1911, [11] followed by most remaining French and British territories on 1 July 1911 and 1 January 1912. [21] [25] The Gambia adopted standard time in 1918. [26] Liberia was the last country in Africa to adopt a standard offset, doing so on 7 January 1972. [13] The latest time change was South Sudan, which switched from UTC+3 to +2 on 1 February 2021. [27]
As Africa straddles the equator and tropics, there is little change in daylight hours throughout the year [4] and as such daylight saving time (DST) is currently observed in only one country, Morocco, however it was also previously observed in several other countries: the countries that formerly observed DST are South Africa, which last observed it in 1944, [28] Cape Verde in 1945, [29] Madagascar in 1954, [29] Ghana in 1956, [30] Sierra Leone in 1962, [31] Algeria and Chad in 1980, [9] Sudan in 1985, [9] Tunisia in 2008, [32] Mauritius in 2009, [29] Libya in 2012, [33] [34] Egypt in 2015, [35] and Namibia in 2017. [36] Since 2019, [37] Morocco has observed UTC+01:00 year round except during the month of Ramadan, when it switches to UTC±00:00 as to not interfere with the month's fasting ( sawm). [38] [39]
Country | Time zone | Abbr. | Adopted | zone.tab [9] |
---|---|---|---|---|
UTC−01:00 – Cape Verde Time [2] [3] | ||||
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Cape Verde Time [41] | CVT | 26 May 1911 [11] | Atlantic/Cape Verde |
UTC±00:00 – Greenwich Mean Time [2] [3] | ||||
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Greenwich Mean Time [43] | GMT | 1 January 1912 | Africa/Ouagadougou |
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Greenwich Mean Time [45] | GMT | 1 January 1911 [21] | Africa/Abidjan |
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Greenwich Mean Time [47] | GMT | 1918 [26] | Africa/Banjul |
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Greenwich Mean Time [49] | GMT | 2 November 1915
[50]–31 January 1942
[51] 24 October 1945 (readopted) [52] |
Africa/Accra |
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Greenwich Mean Time [54] | GMT | 1 January 1912 [21] | Africa/Conakry |
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Greenwich Mean Time [56] | GMT | 1 January 1912 [21] | Africa/Bissau |
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Greenwich Mean Time [58] | GMT | 7 January 1972 [13] | Africa/Monrovia |
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Greenwich Mean Time [60] | GMT | 1 July 1911 | Africa/Bamako |
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Greenwich Mean Time [62] | GMT | 1 January 1912 [21] | Africa/Nouakchott |
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Greenwich Mean Time [64] | GMT | 1 January 1912
[9]–1 January 2018
[65] 1 January 2019 (readopted) [66] |
Africa/Sao Tome |
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Greenwich Mean Time [68] | GMT | 1 January 1912 [21] | Africa/Dakar |
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Greenwich Mean Time [70] | GMT | 1939 [71] | Africa/Freetown |
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Greenwich Mean Time [73] | GMT | 1907 [12] | Africa/Lome |
UTC+01:00 – West Africa Time [2] [3] [b] | ||||
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Central European Time [75] | CET | 11 March 1911 – 25 February 1940
[9] 7 October 1946 – 29 January 1956 [9] 14 April 1963 – 21 October 1977 [9] May 1981 [9] |
Africa/Algiers |
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West Africa Time [77] | WAT | 1 January 1912 [21] | Africa/Luanda |
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West Africa Time [79] | WAT | 1 January 1912 [21] | Africa/Porto-Novo |
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West Africa Time [81] | WAT | 1 January 1912 [21] | Africa/Douala |
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West Africa Time [83] | WAT | 1 January 1912 [21] | Africa/Bangui |
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West Africa Time [85] | WAT | 1 January 1912 | Africa/Ndjamena |
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West Africa Time [87] | WAT | 1 January 1912 | Africa/Kinshasa |
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West Africa Time [89] | WAT | 1968 [c] | Africa/Malabo |
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West Africa Time [92] | WAT | 1 January 1912 [21] | Africa/Libreville |
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Central European Time [94] | CET | 27 October 2018 [95] [96] | Africa/Casablanca |
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West Africa Time [98] | WAT | 1 January 1912 [21] | Africa/Niamey |
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West Africa Time [100] | WAT | 1 July 1905
[23]–1 July 1908
[101] 1 September 1919 (readopted) [102] |
Africa/Lagos |
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West Africa Time [104] | WAT | 1 January 1912 [22] | Africa/Brazzaville |
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Central European Time [106] | CET | 12 April 1911 [21] | Africa/Tunis |
UTC+02:00 – Central Africa Time [2] [3] [d] | ||||
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Central Africa Time [108] | CAT | 1984 [109] | Africa/Gaborone |
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Central Africa Time [111] | CAT | 1968 [9] | Africa/Bujumbura |
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Central Africa Time [87] | CAT | 1 January 1912 | Africa/Lubumbashi |
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Eastern European Time [113] | EET | 1 October 1900 [21] [22] | Africa/Cairo |
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South African Standard Time [115] | SAST | 1 March 1903 | Africa/Mbabane |
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South African Standard Time [117] | SAST | 1 March 1903 | Africa/Maseru |
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Eastern European Time [119] | EET | 5 November 2012 [34] | Africa/Tripoli |
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Central Africa Time [121] | CAT | 26 August 1966 [122] | Africa/Blantyre |
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Central Africa Time [124] | CAT | 1903 (de facto)
[9] 26 May 1911 (de jure) [9] [11] |
Africa/Maputo |
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Central Africa Time [126] | CAT | 10 November 1993 [127] [128] | Africa/Windhoek |
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Central Africa Time [130] | CAT | 1922 | Africa/Kigali |
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South African Standard Time [132] [133] | SAST | 1 March 1903 [134] | Africa/Johannesburg |
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Central Africa Time [136] | CAT | 1 February 2021 [27] | Africa/Juba |
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Central Africa Time [137] | CAT | 1931
[9]–15 January 2000
[138] 1 November 2017 (readopted) [139] |
Africa/Khartoum |
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Central Africa Time [141] | CAT | 1924 [142] | Africa/Lusaka |
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Central Africa Time [144] | CAT | 8 July 1899 [145] [146] | Africa/Harare |
UTC+03:00 – East Africa Time [2] [3] | ||||
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East Africa Time [148] | EAT | 1 July 1911 [21] | Indian/Comoro |
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East Africa Time [150] | EAT | 1 July 1911 [21] | Africa/Djibouti |
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East Africa Time [152] | EAT | 24 May 1993 | Africa/Asmara |
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East Africa Time [154] | EAT | 17 August 1942 [155] | Africa/Addis Ababa |
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East Africa Time [157] [158] | EAT | 31 July 1942 [159] | Africa/Nairobi |
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East Africa Time [161] [162] | EAT | 1 July 1911 [21] | Indian/Antananarivo |
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East Africa Time [164] | EAT | 1 July 1911 [165] | Africa/Mogadishu |
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East Africa Time [167] [168] | EAT | 21 January 1929
[169]–1 January 1936
[170] 1 August 1942 [171] (readopted) |
Africa/Dar es Salaam |
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East Africa Time [173] [174] | EAT | 23 July 1976 [175] | Africa/Kampala |
UTC+04:00 – Mauritius Time; Seychelles Time [2] [3] | ||||
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Mauritius Time [177] | MUT | 1 January 1907 [21] | Indian/Mauritius |
![]() |
Seychelles Time [179] | SCT | 1906 [24] | Indian/Mahe |
{{
cite web}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (
link)
Africa, the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, spans across six different time zone offsets from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC): UTC−01:00 to UTC+04:00. [2] [3] As Africa straddles the equator and tropics, there is little change in daylight hours throughout the year [4] and as such daylight saving time is currently observed in only one country, Morocco, however it was also previously observed in several other countries. [5] [6]
Before the wide adoption of standard time zones, local mean time was widely used in railway time for train timetables and telegraphic time for telegraphy. [7] Local mean time is a solar time that corrects the variations of local apparent time by forming a uniform time scale at a specific longitude; [8] for instance, Liberia observed UTC−0:44:30 instead of an approximate offset such as UTC−01:00. [9] British Rhodesia (at the time administered by the private British South Africa Company) was the first area in Africa to adopt standard time, switching to UTC+02:30 on 1 August 1899 as the previous time standards proved problematic for the railway system. [10] Other countries followed suit, and by 1912, most Portuguese, [11] French and British territories had adopted a standard offset. [12] Liberia was the last country in Africa to adopt a standard offset, doing so on 7 January 1972. [13]
Names for the offsets vary by country and jurisdiction: [3] in Africa, UTC+01:00 is commonly known as " West Africa Time", however Algeria, [14] Morocco and Tunisia [15] designate the offset by its European name, " Central European Time"; UTC+02:00 – commonly known as " Central Africa Time" – is designated as " South African Standard Time" by Eswatini, Lesotho and South Africa, [16] whilst Egypt [17] and Libya [18] designate it by its European name " Eastern European Time". Cape Verde is the only country in Africa which observes UTC−01:00, where it is known as Cape Verde Time (CVT); thirteen countries observe UTC±00:00, fourteen [a] observe UTC+01:00, sixteen [a] observe UTC+02:00, nine observe UTC+03:00, and two ( Mauritius and Seychelles) observe UTC+04:00, where the offset is designated as Mauritius Time (MUT) [19] and Seychelles Time (SCT) [20] respectively. [3]
Before the wide adoption of standard time zones, local mean time, which is a solar time that corrects the variations of local apparent time by forming a uniform time scale at a specific longitude, [8] such as railway time for train timetables and telegraphic time for telegraphy, was widely used. [7] Due to the large size of the British company rule in Rhodesia, it meant Rhodesia observed three standards of time: UTC+01:30, +2:15 and +2:30; this was problematic for the railway system, so on 1 August 1899 the standard time zones UTC+02:30 was adopted nationwide, [10] consequently resulting in this being the first standard time in Africa. This would soon be followed by Egypt, which adopted standard time on 1 October 1900; [21] [22] Nigeria adopted standard time on 1 July 1905, [23] Seychelles in 1906, [24] Mauritius on 1 January 1907, [21] Togo in 1907, [12] Algeria on 11 March 1911 [9] and Tunisia on 12 April 1911. [21] Most Portuguese territories (including Cape Verde and Mozambique) adopted standard time on 26 May 1911, [11] followed by most remaining French and British territories on 1 July 1911 and 1 January 1912. [21] [25] The Gambia adopted standard time in 1918. [26] Liberia was the last country in Africa to adopt a standard offset, doing so on 7 January 1972. [13] The latest time change was South Sudan, which switched from UTC+3 to +2 on 1 February 2021. [27]
As Africa straddles the equator and tropics, there is little change in daylight hours throughout the year [4] and as such daylight saving time (DST) is currently observed in only one country, Morocco, however it was also previously observed in several other countries: the countries that formerly observed DST are South Africa, which last observed it in 1944, [28] Cape Verde in 1945, [29] Madagascar in 1954, [29] Ghana in 1956, [30] Sierra Leone in 1962, [31] Algeria and Chad in 1980, [9] Sudan in 1985, [9] Tunisia in 2008, [32] Mauritius in 2009, [29] Libya in 2012, [33] [34] Egypt in 2015, [35] and Namibia in 2017. [36] Since 2019, [37] Morocco has observed UTC+01:00 year round except during the month of Ramadan, when it switches to UTC±00:00 as to not interfere with the month's fasting ( sawm). [38] [39]
Country | Time zone | Abbr. | Adopted | zone.tab [9] |
---|---|---|---|---|
UTC−01:00 – Cape Verde Time [2] [3] | ||||
![]() |
Cape Verde Time [41] | CVT | 26 May 1911 [11] | Atlantic/Cape Verde |
UTC±00:00 – Greenwich Mean Time [2] [3] | ||||
![]() |
Greenwich Mean Time [43] | GMT | 1 January 1912 | Africa/Ouagadougou |
![]() |
Greenwich Mean Time [45] | GMT | 1 January 1911 [21] | Africa/Abidjan |
![]() |
Greenwich Mean Time [47] | GMT | 1918 [26] | Africa/Banjul |
![]() |
Greenwich Mean Time [49] | GMT | 2 November 1915
[50]–31 January 1942
[51] 24 October 1945 (readopted) [52] |
Africa/Accra |
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Greenwich Mean Time [54] | GMT | 1 January 1912 [21] | Africa/Conakry |
![]() |
Greenwich Mean Time [56] | GMT | 1 January 1912 [21] | Africa/Bissau |
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Greenwich Mean Time [58] | GMT | 7 January 1972 [13] | Africa/Monrovia |
![]() |
Greenwich Mean Time [60] | GMT | 1 July 1911 | Africa/Bamako |
![]() |
Greenwich Mean Time [62] | GMT | 1 January 1912 [21] | Africa/Nouakchott |
![]() |
Greenwich Mean Time [64] | GMT | 1 January 1912
[9]–1 January 2018
[65] 1 January 2019 (readopted) [66] |
Africa/Sao Tome |
![]() |
Greenwich Mean Time [68] | GMT | 1 January 1912 [21] | Africa/Dakar |
![]() |
Greenwich Mean Time [70] | GMT | 1939 [71] | Africa/Freetown |
![]() |
Greenwich Mean Time [73] | GMT | 1907 [12] | Africa/Lome |
UTC+01:00 – West Africa Time [2] [3] [b] | ||||
![]() |
Central European Time [75] | CET | 11 March 1911 – 25 February 1940
[9] 7 October 1946 – 29 January 1956 [9] 14 April 1963 – 21 October 1977 [9] May 1981 [9] |
Africa/Algiers |
![]() |
West Africa Time [77] | WAT | 1 January 1912 [21] | Africa/Luanda |
![]() |
West Africa Time [79] | WAT | 1 January 1912 [21] | Africa/Porto-Novo |
![]() |
West Africa Time [81] | WAT | 1 January 1912 [21] | Africa/Douala |
![]() |
West Africa Time [83] | WAT | 1 January 1912 [21] | Africa/Bangui |
![]() |
West Africa Time [85] | WAT | 1 January 1912 | Africa/Ndjamena |
![]() |
West Africa Time [87] | WAT | 1 January 1912 | Africa/Kinshasa |
![]() |
West Africa Time [89] | WAT | 1968 [c] | Africa/Malabo |
![]() |
West Africa Time [92] | WAT | 1 January 1912 [21] | Africa/Libreville |
![]() |
Central European Time [94] | CET | 27 October 2018 [95] [96] | Africa/Casablanca |
![]() |
West Africa Time [98] | WAT | 1 January 1912 [21] | Africa/Niamey |
![]() |
West Africa Time [100] | WAT | 1 July 1905
[23]–1 July 1908
[101] 1 September 1919 (readopted) [102] |
Africa/Lagos |
![]() |
West Africa Time [104] | WAT | 1 January 1912 [22] | Africa/Brazzaville |
![]() |
Central European Time [106] | CET | 12 April 1911 [21] | Africa/Tunis |
UTC+02:00 – Central Africa Time [2] [3] [d] | ||||
![]() |
Central Africa Time [108] | CAT | 1984 [109] | Africa/Gaborone |
![]() |
Central Africa Time [111] | CAT | 1968 [9] | Africa/Bujumbura |
![]() |
Central Africa Time [87] | CAT | 1 January 1912 | Africa/Lubumbashi |
![]() |
Eastern European Time [113] | EET | 1 October 1900 [21] [22] | Africa/Cairo |
![]() |
South African Standard Time [115] | SAST | 1 March 1903 | Africa/Mbabane |
![]() |
South African Standard Time [117] | SAST | 1 March 1903 | Africa/Maseru |
![]() |
Eastern European Time [119] | EET | 5 November 2012 [34] | Africa/Tripoli |
![]() |
Central Africa Time [121] | CAT | 26 August 1966 [122] | Africa/Blantyre |
![]() |
Central Africa Time [124] | CAT | 1903 (de facto)
[9] 26 May 1911 (de jure) [9] [11] |
Africa/Maputo |
![]() |
Central Africa Time [126] | CAT | 10 November 1993 [127] [128] | Africa/Windhoek |
![]() |
Central Africa Time [130] | CAT | 1922 | Africa/Kigali |
![]() |
South African Standard Time [132] [133] | SAST | 1 March 1903 [134] | Africa/Johannesburg |
![]() |
Central Africa Time [136] | CAT | 1 February 2021 [27] | Africa/Juba |
![]() |
Central Africa Time [137] | CAT | 1931
[9]–15 January 2000
[138] 1 November 2017 (readopted) [139] |
Africa/Khartoum |
![]() |
Central Africa Time [141] | CAT | 1924 [142] | Africa/Lusaka |
![]() |
Central Africa Time [144] | CAT | 8 July 1899 [145] [146] | Africa/Harare |
UTC+03:00 – East Africa Time [2] [3] | ||||
![]() |
East Africa Time [148] | EAT | 1 July 1911 [21] | Indian/Comoro |
![]() |
East Africa Time [150] | EAT | 1 July 1911 [21] | Africa/Djibouti |
![]() |
East Africa Time [152] | EAT | 24 May 1993 | Africa/Asmara |
![]() |
East Africa Time [154] | EAT | 17 August 1942 [155] | Africa/Addis Ababa |
![]() |
East Africa Time [157] [158] | EAT | 31 July 1942 [159] | Africa/Nairobi |
![]() |
East Africa Time [161] [162] | EAT | 1 July 1911 [21] | Indian/Antananarivo |
![]() |
East Africa Time [164] | EAT | 1 July 1911 [165] | Africa/Mogadishu |
![]() |
East Africa Time [167] [168] | EAT | 21 January 1929
[169]–1 January 1936
[170] 1 August 1942 [171] (readopted) |
Africa/Dar es Salaam |
![]() |
East Africa Time [173] [174] | EAT | 23 July 1976 [175] | Africa/Kampala |
UTC+04:00 – Mauritius Time; Seychelles Time [2] [3] | ||||
![]() |
Mauritius Time [177] | MUT | 1 January 1907 [21] | Indian/Mauritius |
![]() |
Seychelles Time [179] | SCT | 1906 [24] | Indian/Mahe |
{{
cite web}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (
link)