What Countries Use Daylight Savings Time?

The use of Daylight Savings Time has been quite a controversy but most of the world, except for the countries that are located near the Equator have used or currently are using DST. Today, almost 70 countries in the world useDaylight Saving Time in at least a portion of the country. But major industrialized countries such as India, Japan, and China do not use or observe some form of daylight saving. Tropical and Equatorial countries do not generally observe DST because the daylight hours in their country are the same every season and there is no known advantage of moving their clocks forward every summer. That’s why in this article, we are going to find out what countries use Daylight Savings Time.

Countries Who Use Daylight Savings Time

Australia – Daylight Savings was introduced in Australia during World War I under Commonwealth legislation which was binding on all the states. During World War I and II in Australia,  Daylight Savings was implemented for the late summers beginning January of 1917 and 1942 and on full summers that began September 1942 and 1943.

When Tasmania experienced a drought that depleted their reserves of water in 1967, their state government implemented one hour of daylight saving during that summer to save power and water. The people in Tasmania agreed to the solution and since then, the Tasmanian government declared daylight saving every summer. After the Tasmanian government was able to persuade other states, except for the Northern Territory and Western Australia, to use daylight savings time. That’s why in 1968, states such as South Australia, New South Wales, and Victoria joined Tasmania and passedlegislation for regular daylight saving. Queensland was the last to do so in 1889.

Asia

  • Israel, Cyprus, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestinian Territories – Observes DST from Friday before the last Sunday of March to the last Sunday of October.
  • Iran – They implement daylight saving time every March 21 or 22 to September 21 or 22. It usually starts on the second day or third day of Nowruz or the Iranian New Year.
  • Turkey – This country currently observes daylight saving time all year-round with no change in the winter.

Africa

  • Melilia, Canary Islands, Madeira, and Ceuta- They all observe daylight saving time from the last Sunday of March to the last Sunday of October.
  • Morocco- They observe daylight saving time all year-round.

Europe

In Europe, daylight savings time is called as summertime. The word Summer is added to the name of each European time zone every time they observe daylight saving time, for example, UTC or Central European Time becomes Central European Summer Time.It begins at 01:00 UTC on the last Sunday of March and ends at 01:00 on the last Sunday of October. The countries that use daylight saving time or summer time in Europe are:

  • Austria
  • Bulgaria
  • Czech Republic
  • Chechoslovakia
  • Denmark
  • Estonia
  • Finland
  • France
  • Monaco
  • Germany
  • Greenland
  • Hungary
  • Iceland
  • Ireland
  • Italy, San Marino, and Vatican City
  • Netherlands
  • Norway
  • Poland
  • Portugal
  • Romania
  • Russia
  • Slovakia
  • Slovenia
  • Spain
  • Sweden
  • Switzerland and Liechtenstein
  • Turkey
  • Ukraine
  • United Kingdom

North and South America

Daylight saving in North and South America is the preparation by which clocks are set advanced by one hour during spring and moved back to standard time in autumn so that evening daylight lasts longer. Daylight saving is used in North America, Mexico, the United States but much less in South America. Here are the countries in the Americas that use daylight savings time:

  • Canada, Mexico, and the United States of America – The three countries all observe daylight saving time on a wide scale and only a few provinces or states opt out of the practice or adopting DST year-round. Daylight saving time begins on the second Sunday of March and ends on the first day of November. However, only border cities in Mexico observes DST and follow the same pattern as the United States and Canada.
  • Miquelon and Saint Pierre
  • Bermuda
  • Bahamas
  • Cuba

Daylight saving time might have some controversy since Benjamin Franklin thought of the idea but it gives us the opportunity to enjoy sunny summer evenings.