The Official Abbreviation

The official abbreviation for Coordinated Universal Time is UTC. It came about as a compromise between English and French speakers.
•   Coordinated Universal Time in English would normally be abbreviated CUT.
•   Temps Universel Coordonné in French would normally be abbreviated TUC.

  Avoiding Confusion

• The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the International Astronomical Union wished to minimize confusion and designated one single abbreviation for use in all languages.
  

  UTC does not favor any particular language. In addition, the advantage of choosing UTC is that it is consistent with the abbreviation for Universal Time, which is UT, with the variations UT0 and UT1.

  Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is often interchanged or confused with Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). But GMT is a time zone and UTC is a time standard.

  Although GMT and UTC share the same current time in practice, there is a basic difference between the two:    (opens in new browser window)

  •   GMT is a time zone officially used in some European and African countries. The time can
         be displayed using both the 24-hour format (0 - 24) or the 12-hour format (1 - 12 am/pm).
  •   UTC is not a time zone, but a time standard that is the basis for civil time and time zones
          worldwide. This means that no country or territory officially uses UTC as a local time.

  UTC, GMT and Daylight Saving Time    (opens in new browser window)

• Neither UTC nor GMT ever change for Daylight Saving Time (DST). However, some of the countries that use GMT switch to different time zones during their DST period. For example, the United Kingdom is not on GMT all year, it uses British Summer Time (BST), which is one hour ahead of GMT, during the summer months.

  US Naval Observatory ⇰ Master Clock    (opens in new browser window)

• This busy site can take a while to load and perform the requisite calculations. Please be patient    (opens in new browser window)

  What Time is it now?           

• GMT	Vancouver	San Francisco	Seattle
  Los Angeles	Denver	Mexico City	Houston
  Minneapolis	New Orleans	Chicago	Montgomery
  Indianapolis	Atlanta	Detroit	Miami
  Washington DC	Philadelphia	New York	Montreal
  Boston	Buenos Aires	Sao Paulo	Rio De Janeiro
  Lisbon	Dublin	London	Madrid
  Barcelona	Paris	Brussels	Amsterdam
  Frankfurt	Rome	Berlin	Prague
  Vienna	Stockholm	Athens	Helsinki
  Minsk	Istanbul	Cairo	Jerusalem
  Beirut	Moscow	Baghdad	Dubai
  Bangkok	Jakarta	Hong Kong	Beijing
  Shanghai	Seoul	Tokyo	Melbourne
  Sydney	Brisbane	Vladivostok	Kamchatka

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