132-484: A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal , commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between countries and their subdivisions instead of strictly following longitude , because it is convenient for areas in frequent communication to keep the same time. Each time zone is defined by a standard offset from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The offsets range from UTC−12:00 to UTC+14:00 , and are usually
264-495: A cascading waterfall with Italian Renaissance -style architecture. Modern , Postmodern , contemporary , and other non-classical architectural styles are also seen in the city. The National Museum of African American History and Culture deeply contrasts the stone-based neoclassical buildings on the National Mall with a design that combines modern engineering with heavy inspiration from African art . The interior of
396-509: A referendum on D.C. statehood resulted in an 85% support among Washington, D.C., voters for it to become the nation's 51st state . In March 2017, the city's congressional delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton introduced a bill for statehood. Reintroduced in 2019 and 2021 as the Washington, D.C., Admission Act , the U.S. House of Representatives passed it in April 2021. After not progressing in
528-425: A 30-minute offset. Nepal was the last country to adopt a standard offset, shifting slightly to UTC+05:45 in 1986. All nations currently use standard time zones for secular purposes, but not all of them apply the concept as originally conceived. Several countries and subdivisions use half-hour or quarter-hour deviations from standard time. Some countries, such as China and India , use a single time zone even though
660-560: A C library based on the BSD C library, or the System V Release 4 C library, can make use of this database. Windows -based computer systems prior to Windows 95 and Windows NT used local time, but Windows 95 and later, and Windows NT, base system time on UTC. They allow a program to fetch the system time as UTC, represented as a year, month, day, hour, minute, second, and millisecond; Windows 95 and later, and Windows NT 3.5 and later, also allow
792-574: A May 1915 ordinance settled on EST and was ratified by popular vote in August 1916. The confusion of times came to an end when standard time zones were formally adopted by the U.S. Congress in the Standard Time Act of March 19, 1918. Italian mathematician Quirico Filopanti introduced the idea of a worldwide system of time zones in his book Miranda! , published in 1858. He proposed 24 hourly time zones, which he called "longitudinal days",
924-478: A clock for each railroad, each showing a different time. Because of this a number of accidents occurred when trains from different companies using the same tracks mistimed their passings. Around 1863, Charles F. Dowd proposed a system of hourly standard time zones for North American railroads, although he published nothing on the matter at that time and did not consult railroad officials until 1869. In 1870 he proposed four ideal time zones having north–south borders,
1056-442: A convenient time, usually at night, not exactly when they cross a certain longitude. Some ships simply remain on the time of the departing port during the whole trip. Ideal time zones, such as nautical time zones, are based on the mean solar time of a particular meridian in the middle of that zone with boundaries located 7.5 degrees east and west of the meridian. In practice, however, many time zone boundaries are drawn much farther to
1188-408: A garden-lined grand avenue about 1 mile (1.6 km) long and 400 feet (120 m) wide in an area that is now the National Mall inspired by the grounds at Versailles and Tuileries Gardens. In March 1792, President Washington dismissed L'Enfant due to conflicts with the three commissioners appointed to supervise the capital's construction. Andrew Ellicott , who worked with L'Enfant in surveying
1320-476: A meeting of the Royal Canadian Institute on February 8, 1879. Cleveland Abbe advocated standard time to better coordinate international weather observations and resultant weather forecasts , which had been coordinated using local solar time . In 1879 he recommended four time zones across the contiguous United States , based upon Greenwich Mean Time . The General Time Convention (renamed
1452-502: A modern glass exterior and heavy curvature. CityCenterDC is home to Palmer Alley, a pedestrian-only walkway, and houses several apartment buildings, restaurants, and luxury-brand storefronts with streamlined glass and metal facades. Outside Downtown D.C., architectural styles are more varied. Historic buildings are designed primarily in the Queen Anne , Châteauesque , Richardsonian Romanesque , Georgian Revival , Beaux-Arts , and
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#17327733043521584-431: A relatively high homelessness rate, despite its high living standard compared to many American cities. Washington, D.C., is divided into four quadrants of unequal area: Northwest (NW) , Northeast (NE) , Southeast (SE) , and Southwest (SW) . The axes bounding the quadrants radiate from the U.S. Capitol. All road names include the quadrant abbreviation to indicate their location. House numbers generally correspond with
1716-595: A snowstorm in January 1772. Hurricanes or their remnants occasionally impact the area in late summer and early fall. However, they usually are weak by the time they reach Washington, partly due to the city's inland location. Flooding of the Potomac River , however, caused by a combination of high tide, storm surge, and runoff, has been known to cause extensive property damage in the Georgetown neighborhood of
1848-676: A special committee charged with beautifying Washington's ceremonial core. What became known as the McMillan Plan was finalized in 1901 and included relandscaping the Capitol grounds and the National Mall, clearing slums, and establishing a new citywide park system. The plan is thought to have largely preserved L'Enfant's intended design for the city. By law, the city's skyline is low and sprawling. The federal Height of Buildings Act of 1910 prohibits buildings with height exceeding
1980-742: A standard reference time while each location in England kept a different time. In the 19th century, as transportation and telecommunications improved, it became increasingly inconvenient for each location to observe its own solar time. In November 1840, the British Great Western Railway started using GMT kept by portable chronometers . This practice was soon followed by other railway companies in Great Britain and became known as railway time . Around August 23, 1852, time signals were first transmitted by telegraph from
2112-629: A standard time for the whole country. The director of the Geological Survey, James Hector , selected New Zealand time to be at the meridian 172°30′E. This was very close to the country's mean longitude and exactly 11 + 1 ⁄ 2 hours in advance of Greenwich Mean Time. It came into effect on 2 November 1868. For over fifty years, the Colonial Time Service Observatory in Wellington, determined
2244-479: A standard time zone, but only some of them used an hourly offset from GMT. Many applied the time at a local astronomical observatory to an entire country, without any reference to GMT. It took many decades before all time zones were based on some standard offset from GMT or Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). By 1929, the majority of countries had adopted hourly time zones, though some countries such as Iran , India , Myanmar and parts of Australia had time zones with
2376-633: A stream valley that bisects the city. Established in 1890, it is the country's fourth-oldest national park and is home to a variety of plant and animal species, including raccoon, deer, owls, and coyotes. Other National Park Service properties include the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park , the National Mall and Memorial Parks , Theodore Roosevelt Island , Columbia Island , Fort Dupont Park , Meridian Hill Park , Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens , and Anacostia Park . The District of Columbia Department of Parks and Recreation maintains
2508-473: A variety of Victorian styles. Rowhouses are prominent in areas developed after the Civil War and typically follow Federal and late Victorian designs. Georgetown 's Old Stone House , built in 1765, is the oldest-standing building in the city. Founded in 1789, Georgetown University features a mix of Romanesque and Gothic Revival architecture . The Ronald Reagan Building is the largest building in
2640-461: A whole number of hours, but a few zones are offset by an additional 30 or 45 minutes, such as in India and Nepal . Some areas in a time zone may use a different offset for part of the year, typically one hour ahead during spring and summer , a practice known as daylight saving time (DST). In the table below, the locations that use daylight saving time (DST) are listed in their UTC offset when DST
2772-567: Is not in effect. When DST is in effect, approximately during spring and summer, their UTC offset is increased by one hour (except for Lord Howe Island , where it is increased by 30 minutes). For example, during the DST period California observes UTC−07:00 and the United Kingdom observes UTC+01:00 . The apparent position of the Sun in the sky, and thus solar time , varies by location due to
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#17327733043522904-406: Is 11 hours 30 minutes ahead of GMT. This standard was known as New Zealand Mean Time . Timekeeping on North American railroads in the 19th century was complex. Each railroad used its own standard time, usually based on the local time of its headquarters or most important terminus, and the railroad's train schedules were published using its own time. Some junctions served by several railroads had
3036-628: Is a standard established by the International Organization for Standardization defining methods of representing dates and times in textual form, including specifications for representing time zones. If a time is in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), a "Z" is added directly after the time without a separating space. "Z" is the zone designator for the zero UTC offset. "09:30 UTC" is therefore represented as "09:30Z" or "0930Z". Likewise, "14:45:15 UTC"
3168-628: Is appended to local times in the same way that alphabetic time zone abbreviations (or "Z", as above) are appended. The offset from UTC changes with daylight saving time , e.g. a time offset in Chicago , which is in the North American Central Time Zone , is " −06:00 " for the winter (Central Standard Time) and " −05:00 " for the summer (Central Daylight Time). Time zones are often represented by alphabetic abbreviations such as "EST", "WST", and "CST", but these are not part of
3300-911: Is generally popular among tourists and locals. In 2007, six of the top ten buildings in the American Institute of Architects ' ranking of America's Favorite Architecture were in the city: the White House , Washington National Cathedral , the Jefferson Memorial , the United States Capitol , the Lincoln Memorial , and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial . The neoclassical , Georgian , Gothic , and Modern styles are reflected among these six structures and many other prominent edifices in
3432-480: Is in plant hardiness zone 8a near downtown, and zone 7b elsewhere in the city. Summers are hot and humid with a July daily average of 79.8 °F (26.6 °C) and average daily relative humidity around 66%, which can cause moderate personal discomfort. Heat indices regularly approach 100 °F (38 °C) at the height of summer. The combination of heat and humidity in the summer brings very frequent thunderstorms, some of which occasionally produce tornadoes in
3564-452: Is known as a lobbying hub, with K Street as the industry center. The city had 20.7 million domestic visitors and 1.2 million international visitors, ranking seventh among U.S. cities as of 2022. The Algonquian -speaking Piscataway people , also known as the Conoy, inhabited the lands around the Potomac River and present-day Washington, D.C., when Europeans first arrived and colonized
3696-477: Is sea level at the Potomac River. The geographic center of Washington is near the intersection of 4th and L streets NW. The district has 7,464 acres (30.21 km ) of parkland, about 19% of the city's total area, the second-highest among high-density U.S. cities after Philadelphia . The city's sizable parkland was a factor in the city being ranked as third in the nation for park access and quality in
3828-466: Is to allow the more efficient use of afternoon sunlight. Some of these locations also use daylight saving time (DST), further increasing the difference to local solar time. As a result, in summer, solar noon in the Spanish city of Vigo occurs at 14:41 clock time. This westernmost area of continental Spain never experiences sunset before 18:00 clock time, even in winter, despite lying 42 degrees north of
3960-595: Is updated whenever time zone or daylight saving time rules change. Oracle provides an updater tool for this purpose. As an alternative to the information bundled with the Java Platform, programmers may choose to use the Joda-Time library. This library includes its own data based on the IANA time zone database. As of Java 8 there is a new date and time API that can help with converting times. Traditionally, there
4092-403: Is usually converted to local time when displayed to the user, and times specified by the user in local time are converted to Unix time. The conversion takes into account the time zone and daylight saving time rules; by default the time zone and daylight saving time rules are set up when the system is configured, though individual processes can specify time zones and daylight saving time rules using
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4224-531: Is written as "14:45:15Z" or "144515Z". UTC time is also known as "Zulu" time, since "Zulu" is a phonetic alphabet code word for the letter "Z". Offsets from UTC are written in the format ±hh:mm, ±hhmm, or ±hh (either hours ahead or behind UTC). For example, if the time being described is one hour ahead of UTC (such as the time in Germany during the winter), the zone designator would be " +01:00 ", "+0100", or simply "+01". This numeric representation of time zones
4356-593: The American Railway Association in 1891), an organization of US railroads charged with coordinating schedules and operating standards, became increasingly concerned that if the US government adopted a standard time scheme it would be disadvantageous to its member railroads. William F. Allen, the Convention secretary, argued that North American railroads should adopt a five-zone standard, similar to
4488-499: The Anacostia River to the east. Washington, D.C.'s street grid was extended, where possible, throughout the district starting in 1888. Georgetown's streets were renamed in 1895. Some streets are particularly noteworthy, including Pennsylvania Avenue , which connects the White House to the Capitol; and K Street, which houses the offices of many lobbying groups. Constitution Avenue and Independence Avenue , located on
4620-646: The Compensated Emancipation Act in 1862, which ended slavery in the district, freeing about 3,100 slaves in the district nine months before the Emancipation Proclamation . In 1868, Congress granted the district's African American male residents the right to vote in municipal elections. By 1870, the district's population had grown 75% in a decade to nearly 132,000 people, yet the city still lacked paved roads and basic sanitation. Some members of Congress suggested moving
4752-714: The Continental Congress and under the Articles of Confederation . New York City was the first capital upon the adoption of the Constitution , succeeded by Philadelphia , which was capital from 1790 to 1800. On October 6, 1783, after the capital was forced by the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783 to move to Princeton, Congress resolved to consider a new location for it. The following day, Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts moved "that buildings for
4884-811: The District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801 , which officially organized the district and placed the entire territory under the exclusive control of the federal government. The area within the district was organized into two counties, the County of Washington to the east and north of the Potomac and the County of Alexandria to the west and south. After the Act's passage, citizens in the district were no longer considered residents of Maryland or Virginia, which ended their representation in Congress. On August 24, 1814, during
5016-601: The Eastern Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere , with one Prime Meridian replacing the various prime meridians that had previously been used. During the 19th century, scheduled steamships and trains required time standardisation in the industrialized world. A standardised time system was first used by British railways on 1 December 1847, when they switched from local mean time, which varied from place to place, to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). It
5148-542: The IANA time zone database and includes the ability to get, set and convert between time zones. The DateTime objects and related functions have been compiled into the PHP core since 5.2. This includes the ability to get and set the default script time zone, and DateTime is aware of its own time zone internally. PHP.net provides extensive documentation on this. As noted there, the most current time zone database can be implemented via
5280-688: The National Mall , including the Jefferson Memorial , the Lincoln Memorial , and the Washington Monument . It hosts 177 foreign embassies and serves as the headquarters for the World Bank , the International Monetary Fund , the Organization of American States , and other international organizations. Home to many of the nation's largest industry associations, non-profit organizations, and think tanks , D.C.
5412-548: The Northeast megalopolis . As the seat of the U.S. federal government , the city is an important world political capital . The city hosts the buildings that house federal government headquarters, including the White House , the Capitol, the Supreme Court Building , and multiple federal departments and agencies . The city is home to many national monuments and museums , located most prominently on or around
Time zone - Misplaced Pages Continue
5544-527: The PECL timezonedb. Standard time Standard time is the synchronization of clocks within a geographical region to a single time standard, rather than a local mean time standard. Generally, standard time agrees with the local mean time at some meridian that passes through the region, often near the centre of the region. Historically, standard time was established during the 19th century to aid weather forecasting and train travel. Applied globally in
5676-484: The Potomac River forms the district's border with Virginia and has two major tributaries, the Anacostia River and Rock Creek . Tiber Creek , a natural watercourse that once passed through the National Mall , was fully enclosed underground during the 1870s. The creek also formed a portion of the now-filled Washington City Canal , which allowed passage through the city to the Anacostia River from 1815 until
5808-512: The TZ environment variable . This allows users in multiple time zones, or in the same time zone but with different daylight saving time rules, to use the same computer, with their respective local times displayed correctly to each user. Time zone and daylight saving time rule information most commonly comes from the IANA time zone database . In fact, many systems, including anything using the GNU C Library ,
5940-428: The U.S. East Coast . The city has a total area of 68.34 square miles (177 km ), of which 61.05 square miles (158.1 km ) is land and 7.29 square miles (18.9 km ) (10.67%) is water. The district is bordered by Montgomery County, Maryland , to the northwest; Prince George's County, Maryland , to the east; Arlington County, Virginia , to the west; and Alexandria, Virginia , to the south. The south bank of
6072-524: The United States . The city is on the Potomac River , across from Virginia , and shares land borders with Maryland to its north and east. It was named after George Washington , the first president of the United States . The district is named after Columbia , the female personification of the nation . The U.S. Constitution in 1789 called for the creation of a federal district under
6204-983: The University of Pittsburgh 's Allegheny Observatory (then known as the Western University of Pennsylvania , located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania ). Instituted in 1869, the Allegheny Observatory's service is believed to have been the first regular and systematic system of time distribution to railroads and cities as well as the origin of the modern standard time system. By 1870 the Allegheny Time service extended over 2,500 miles with 300 telegraph offices receiving time signals. However, almost all railroads out of New York ran on New York time, and railroads west from Chicago mostly used Chicago time, but between Chicago and Pittsburgh/Buffalo
6336-637: The War of 1812 , British forces invaded and occupied the city after defeating an American force at Bladensburg . In retaliation for acts of destruction by American troops in the Canadas , the British set fire to government buildings in the city, gutting the United States Capitol , the Treasury Building , and the White House in what became known as the burning of Washington . However, a storm forced
6468-623: The Washington Metro stations and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden are designed with strong influence from the 20th-century Brutalism movement. The Smithsonian Institution Building is built of Seneca red sandstone in the Norman Revival style. The Old Post Office building, located on Pennsylvania Avenue and completed in 1899, was the first building in the city to have a steel frame structure and
6600-425: The exclusive jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress . As such, Washington, D.C., is not part of any state , and is not one itself. The Residence Act , adopted on July 16, 1790, approved the creation of the capital district along the Potomac River. The city was founded in 1791, and the 6th Congress held the first session in the unfinished Capitol Building in 1800 after the capital moved from Philadelphia . In 1801,
6732-413: The high seas . As an ideal form of the terrestrial time zone system, nautical time zones consist of gores of 15° offset from GMT by a whole number of hours. A nautical date line follows the 180th meridian, bisecting one 15° gore into two 7.5° gores that differ from GMT by ±12 hours. However, in practice each ship may choose what time to observe at each location. Ships may decide to adjust their clocks at
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#17327733043526864-623: The spherical shape of the Earth. This variation corresponds to four minutes of time for every degree of longitude , so for example when it is solar noon in London , it is about 10 minutes before solar noon in Bristol , which is about 2.5 degrees to the west. The Royal Observatory, Greenwich , founded in 1675, established Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), the mean solar time at that location, as an aid to mariners to determine longitude at sea, providing
6996-529: The 1850s. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal starts in Georgetown and was used during the 19th century to bypass the Little Falls of the Potomac River, located at the northwest edge of the city at the Atlantic Seaboard fall line . The highest natural elevation in the district is 409 feet (125 m) above sea level at Fort Reno Park in upper northwest Washington, D.C. The lowest point
7128-580: The 1883 west end of the railroad at Wallula Jct ; the Union Pacific Railway was at the other extreme, with only two time zones between Omaha and Ogden. In 1870, Charles F. Dowd proposed four time zones based on the meridian through Washington, DC for North American railroads. In 1872 he revised his proposal to base it on the Greenwich meridian . Sandford Fleming , a Scottish-born Canadian engineer, proposed worldwide Standard Time at
7260-482: The 2018 ParkScore ranking of the park systems of the nation's 100 most populous cities, according to Trust for Public Land , a non-profit organization. The National Park Service manages most of the 9,122 acres (36.92 km ) of city land owned by the U.S. government. Rock Creek Park is a 1,754-acre (7.10 km ) urban forest in Northwest Washington, which extends 9.3 miles (15.0 km) through
7392-405: The 20th century, the geographical regions became time zones . The standard time in each time zone has come to be defined as an offset from Universal Time . A further offset is applied for part of the year in regions with daylight saving time . The adoption of standard time, because of the inseparable correspondence between longitude and time , solidified the concept of halving the globe into
7524-566: The 90th meridian. Although most railroads adopted the new system as scheduled, some did so early on October 7 and others late on December 2. The Intercolonial Railway serving the Canadian maritime provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia just east of Maine decided not to adopt Intercolonial Time based on the 60th meridian west of Greenwich, instead adopting Eastern Time, so only four time zones were actually adopted by U.S./Canadian railroads in 1883. Major American observatories, including
7656-660: The Allegheny Observatory, the United States Naval Observatory , the Harvard College Observatory , and the Yale University Observatory , agreed to provide telegraphic time signals at noon Eastern Time. Standard time was not enacted into US law until the 1918 Standard Time Act established standard time in time zones; the law also instituted daylight saving time (DST). The daylight saving time portion of
7788-504: The British to evacuate the city after just 24 hours. Most government buildings were repaired quickly, but the Capitol, which was largely under construction at the time, would not be completed in its current form until 1868. In the 1830s, the district's southern territory of Alexandria declined economically, due in part to its neglect by Congress. Alexandria was a major market in the domestic slave trade and pro-slavery residents feared that abolitionists in Congress would end slavery in
7920-521: The District from its founding. The building of Washington likely relied in significant part on slave labor, and slave receipts have been found for the White House, Capitol Building, and establishment of Georgetown University. The city became an important slave market and a center of the nation's internal slave trade . After its survey, the new federal city was constructed on the north bank of
8052-412: The District of Columbia, formerly part of Maryland and Virginia and including the existing settlements of Georgetown and Alexandria , was officially recognized as the federal district; initially, the city was a separate settlement within the larger district. In 1846, Congress returned the land originally ceded by Virginia , including the city of Alexandria. In 1871, it created a single municipality for
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#17327733043528184-433: The District of Columbia. Shepherd authorized large projects that modernized the city but bankrupted its government. In 1874, Congress replaced the territorial government with an appointed three-member board of commissioners. In 1888, the city's first motorized streetcars began service. Their introduction generated growth in areas of the district beyond the City of Washington's original boundaries, leading to an expansion of
8316-422: The Federal District to about the size of the national mall. Designed in 1791 by Pierre Charles L'Enfant , the city is divided into quadrants , which are centered around the Capitol Building and include 131 neighborhoods . As of the 2020 census , the city had a population of 689,545. Commuters from the city's Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the city's daytime population to more than one million during
8448-423: The Netherlands, introduction of the railways made it desirable to create a standard time. On 1 May 1909, Amsterdam Time or Dutch Time was introduced. Before that, time was measured in different cities; in the east of the country, this was a few minutes earlier than in the west. After that, all parts of the country had the same local time—that of the Wester Tower in Amsterdam (Westertoren/4°53'01.95" E). This time
8580-444: The Potomac River, to the east of Georgetown centered on Capitol Hill . On September 9, 1791, three commissioners overseeing the capital's construction named the city in honor of President Washington. The same day, the federal district was named Columbia, a feminine form of Columbus , which was a poetic name for the United States commonly used at that time. Congress held its first session there on November 17, 1800. Congress passed
8712-399: The Residence Act, the exact location was to be selected by President George Washington , who signed the bill into law on July 16, 1790. Formed from land donated by Maryland and Virginia, the initial shape of the federal district was a square measuring 10 miles (16 km) on each side and totaling 100 square miles (259 km ). Two pre-existing settlements were included in the territory,
8844-444: The Royal Observatory. By 1855, 98% of Great Britain's public clocks were using GMT, but it was not made the island's legal time until August 2, 1880. Some British clocks from this period have two minute hands, one for the local time and one for GMT. On November 2, 1868, the British Colony of New Zealand officially adopted a standard time to be observed throughout the colony. It was based on longitude 172°30′ east of Greenwich , that
8976-410: The Senate, the statehood bill was introduced again in January 2023. The bill would have made D.C. into a state with one representative and two senators, with the name Washington, Douglas Commonwealth (thus keeping the same abbreviation Washington, D.C.). The legalities, reasons, and impact of statehood have been heavily debated in the 2020s. Washington, D.C., is located in the Mid-Atlantic region of
9108-530: The Terminal Server so that users see the correct time for their time zone in their desktop/application sessions. Terminal Services uses the server base time on the Terminal Server and the client time zone information to calculate the time in the session. While most application software will use the underlying operating system for time zone and daylight saving time rule information, the Java Platform , from version 1.3.1, has maintained its own database of time zone and daylight saving time rule information. This database
9240-429: The US version shows Eastern Time . US Eastern Time and Pacific Time are also used fairly commonly on many US-based English-language websites with global readership. The format is typically based in the W3C Note "datetime". Email systems and other messaging systems ( IRC chat , etc.) time-stamp messages using UTC, or else include the sender's time zone as part of the message, allowing the receiving program to display
9372-647: The United States Constitution was ratified in 1961, granting the district three votes in the Electoral College for the election of president and vice president, but still not affording the city's residents representation in Congress. After the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968, riots broke out in the city , primarily in the U Street, 14th Street, 7th Street, and H Street corridors, which were predominantly black residential and commercial areas. The riots raged for three days until more than 13,600 federal troops and Washington, D.C., Army National Guardsmen stopped
9504-513: The already-implemented L'Enfant Plan , with the new McMillan Plan leading urban development in the city throughout the movement. Much of the old Victorian Mall was replaced with modern Neoclassical and Beaux-Arts architecture ; these designs are still prevalent in the city's governmental buildings today. Increased federal spending under the New Deal in the 1930s led to the construction of new government buildings, memorials, and museums in
9636-506: The area becomes a function of UTC time. The time differences may also result in different dates. For example, when it is 22:00 on Monday in Egypt (UTC+02:00), it is 01:00 on Tuesday in Pakistan (UTC+05:00). The table "Time of day by zone" gives an overview on the time relations between different zones. Since the 1920s, a nautical standard time system has been in operation for ships on
9768-504: The area. Blizzards affect Washington once every four to six years on average. The most violent storms, known as nor'easters , often impact large regions of the East Coast . From January 27 to 28, 1922 , the city officially received 28 inches (71 cm) of snowfall, the largest snowstorm since official measurements began in 1885. According to notes kept at the time, the city received between 30 and 36 inches (76 and 91 cm) from
9900-512: The article on daylight saving time for more details on this aspect.) Web servers presenting web pages primarily for an audience in a single time zone or a limited range of time zones typically show times as a local time, perhaps with UTC time in brackets. More internationally oriented websites may show times in UTC only or using an arbitrary time zone. For example, the international English-language version of CNN includes GMT and Hong Kong Time, whereas
10032-468: The begin and end dates of daylight saving time are changed, calendar entries should stay the same in local time, even though they may shift in UTC time. Unix-like systems, including Linux and macOS , keep system time in Unix time format, representing the number of seconds (excluding leap seconds ) that have elapsed since 00:00:00 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) on Thursday, January 1, 1970. Unix time
10164-549: The calendar events are assumed to take place in the time zone the computer or smartphone was on when creating the event. The event can be shown at the wrong time. For example, if a New Yorker plans to meet someone in Los Angeles at 9 am, and makes a calendar entry at 9 am (which the computer assumes is New York time), the calendar entry will be at 6 am if taking the computer's time zone. Calendaring software must also deal with daylight saving time (DST). If, for political reasons,
10296-562: The capital farther west, but President Ulysses S. Grant refused to consider the proposal. In the Organic Act of 1871 , Congress repealed the individual charters of the cities of Washington and Georgetown , abolished Washington County , and created a new territorial government for the whole District of Columbia. These steps made "the city of Washington...legally indistinguishable from the District of Columbia." In 1873, President Grant appointed Alexander Robey Shepherd as Governor of
10428-608: The capital. In the Compromise of 1790 , Madison, Alexander Hamilton , and Thomas Jefferson agreed that the federal government would pay each state's remaining Revolutionary War debts in exchange for establishing the new national capital in the Southern United States . On July 9, 1790, Congress passed the Residence Act , which approved the creation of a national capital on the Potomac River . Under
10560-565: The city's 900 acres (3.6 km ) of athletic fields and playgrounds, 40 swimming pools, and 68 recreation centers. The U.S. Department of Agriculture operates the 446-acre (1.80 km ) United States National Arboretum in Northeast Washington, D.C. Washington's climate is humid subtropical ( Köppen : Cfa ), or oceanic ( Trewartha : Do bordering Cf downtown). Winters are cool to cold with some snow of varying intensity, while summers are hot and humid. The district
10692-730: The city's classical-style architecture include buildings constructed in the French Second Empire style, including the Eisenhower Executive Office Building , and the modernist Watergate complex . The Thomas Jefferson Building , the main Library of Congress building, and the historic Willard Hotel are built in Beaux-Arts style , popular throughout the world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Meridian Hill Park contains
10824-421: The city, was then tasked with completing its design. Though Ellicott revised the original L'Enfant plans, including changing some street patterns, L'Enfant is still credited with the city's overall design. By the early 20th century, however, L'Enfant's vision of a grand national capital was marred by slums and randomly placed buildings in the city, including a railroad station on the National Mall. Congress formed
10956-530: The city. Many of the government buildings, monuments, and museums along the National Mall and surrounding areas are heavily inspired by classical Roman and Greek architecture. The designs of the White House, the U.S. Capitol, Supreme Court Building , Washington Monument , National Gallery of Art , Lincoln Memorial, and Jefferson Memorial are all heavily drawn from these classical architectural movements and feature large pediments, domes, columns in classical order, and heavy stone walls. Notable exceptions to
11088-469: The city. Precipitation occurs throughout the year. The highest recorded temperature was 106 °F (41 °C) on August 6, 1918, and on July 20, 1930. The lowest recorded temperature was −15 °F (−26 °C) on February 11, 1899 , right before the Great Blizzard of 1899 . During a typical year, the city averages about 37 days at or above 90 °F (32 °C) and 64 nights at or below
11220-527: The clock to be moved an hour and forty minutes forward. This time was kept in summer and winter throughout 1941 and 1942. It was only in November 1942 that a different Winter time was introduced, and the time was adjusted one hour backwards. This lasted for only three years; after the liberation of the Netherlands in 1945, Summer time was abolished for over thirty years, so during those years, standard time
11352-424: The correct time each morning. At 9 a.m. each day, it was transmitted by Morse code to post offices and railway stations around the country. In 1920, radio time signals began broadcasting, greatly increasing the accuracy of the time nationwide. Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C. , formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C. , is the capital city and federal district of
11484-482: The district . Alexandria's citizens petitioned Virginia to retake the land it had donated to form the district, a process known as retrocession . The Virginia General Assembly voted in February 1846, to accept the return of Alexandria. On July 9, 1846, Congress went further, agreeing to return all territory that Virginia had ceded to the district during its formation. This left the district's area consisting only of
11616-548: The district over the next few decades. Georgetown's street grid and other administrative details were formally merged with those of the City of Washington in 1895. However, the city had poor housing and strained public works, leading it to become the first city in the nation to undergo urban renewal projects as part of the City Beautiful movement in the early 20th century. The City Beautiful movement built heavily upon
11748-523: The district, though the chairman of the House Subcommittee on District Appropriations, Ross A. Collins of Mississippi , justified cuts to funds for welfare and education for local residents by saying that "my constituents wouldn't stand for spending money on niggers." World War II led to an expansion of federal employees in the city; by 1950, the district's population reached its peak of 802,178 residents. The Twenty-third Amendment to
11880-564: The equation is equivalent to UTC. The conversion equation can be rearranged to For example, the New York Stock Exchange opens at 09:30 ( EST , UTC offset= −05:00). In California ( PST , UTC offset= −08:00) and India ( IST , UTC offset= +05:30), the New York Stock Exchange opens at These calculations become more complicated near the time switch to or from daylight saving time, as the UTC offset for
12012-467: The equator. Near the summer solstice , Vigo has sunset times after 22:00, similar to those of Stockholm , which is in the same time zone and 17 degrees farther north. Stockholm has much earlier sunrises, though. In the United States, the reasons were more historical and business-related. In Midwestern states, like Indiana and Michigan , those living in Indianapolis and Detroit wanted to be on
12144-473: The establishment of "New Zealand time". In 1868, the Telegraph Department adopted " Wellington time" as the standard time across all their offices so that opening and closing times could be synchronised. The Post Office, which usually shared the same building, followed suit. However, protests that time was being dictated by one government department, led to a resolution in parliament to establish
12276-531: The extent of their territory far exceeds the ideal 15° of longitude for one hour; other countries, such as Spain and Argentina , use standard hour-based offsets, but not necessarily those that would be determined by their geographical location. The consequences, in some areas, can affect the lives of local citizens, and in extreme cases contribute to larger political issues, such as in the western reaches of China. In Russia, which has 11 time zones , two time zones were removed in 2010 and reinstated in 2014. ISO 8601
12408-473: The federal level, politically disenfranchised since the city's residents do not have voting representation in Congress; the city's residents elect a single non-voting congressional delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives. The city's voters choose three presidential electors in accordance with the Twenty-third Amendment , passed in 1961. Washington, D.C. anchors the southern end of
12540-573: The first centered on Washington, D.C. , but by 1872 the first was centered on meridian 75° west of Greenwich , with natural borders such as sections of the Appalachian Mountains . Dowd's system was never accepted by North American railroads. Chief meteorologist at the United States Weather Bureau Cleveland Abbe divided the United States into four standard time zones for consistency among
12672-530: The first centred on the meridian of Rome . He also proposed a universal time to be used in astronomy and telegraphy. However, his book attracted no attention until long after his death. Scottish -born Canadian Sir Sandford Fleming proposed a worldwide system of time zones in 1876 - see Sandford Fleming § Inventor of worldwide standard time . The proposal divided the world into twenty-four time zones labeled A-Y (skipping J), each one covering 15 degrees of longitude. All clocks within each zone would be set to
12804-684: The first to use electrical wiring in its design. Notable contemporary residential buildings, restaurants, shops, and office buildings in the city include the Wharf on the Southwest Waterfront , Navy Yard along the Anacostia River , and CityCenterDC in Downtown . The Wharf has seen the construction of several high-rise office and residential buildings overlooking the Potomac River . Additionally, restaurants, bars, and shops have been opened at street level. Many of these buildings have
12936-404: The freezing mark (32 °F or 0 °C). On average, the first day with a minimum at or below freezing is November 18 and the last day is March 27. Washington, D.C., was a planned city , and many of the city's street grids were developed in that initial plan. In 1791, President George Washington commissioned Pierre Charles L'Enfant , a French-born military engineer and artist, to design
13068-449: The greatest terrestrial time zone difference on Earth, with a 3.5 hour difference between Afghanistan's UTC+4:30 and China's UTC+08:00 . Many countries, and sometimes just certain regions of countries, adopt daylight saving time (DST), also known as summer time, during part of the year. This typically involves advancing clocks by an hour near the start of spring and adjusting back in autumn ("spring forward", "fall back"). Modern DST
13200-415: The international time and date standard ISO 8601 . Such designations can be ambiguous; for example, "CST" can mean (North American) Central Standard Time (UTC−06:00), Cuba Standard Time (UTC−05:00) and China Standard Time (UTC+08:00), and it is also a widely used variant of ACST ( Australian Central Standard Time , UTC+09:30). Conversion between time zones obeys the relationship in which each side of
13332-651: The law was repealed in 1919 over a presidential veto, but was re-established nationally during World War II. In 2007 the US enacted a federal law formalising the use of Coordinated Universal Time as the basis of standard time, and the role of the Secretary of Commerce (effectively, the National Institute of Standards and Technology ) and the Secretary of the Navy (effectively, the U.S. Naval Observatory ) in interpreting standard time. In 1999, standard time
13464-653: The message's date and time of sending in the recipient's local time. Database records that include a time stamp typically use UTC, especially when the database is part of a system that spans multiple time zones. The use of local time for time-stamping records is not recommended for time zones that implement daylight saving time because once a year there is a one-hour period when local times are ambiguous. Calendar systems nowadays usually tie their time stamps to UTC, and show them differently on computers that are in different time zones. That works when having telephone or internet meetings. It works less well when travelling, because
13596-416: The necessary support for working with all (or almost all) possible local times based on the various time zones. Internally, operating systems typically use UTC as their basic time-keeping standard , while providing services for converting local times to and from UTC, and also the ability to automatically change local time conversions at the start and end of daylight saving time in the various time zones. (See
13728-469: The need for the national government not to rely on any state for its own security. Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution permits the establishment of a "District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States". However, the constitution does not specify a location for
13860-496: The new capital. He enlisted the help of Isaac Roberdeau, Étienne Sulpice Hallet and Scottish surveyor Alexander Ralston to help lay out the city plan. The L'Enfant Plan featured broad streets and avenues radiating out from rectangles, providing room for open space and landscaping. L'Enfant was also provided a roll of maps by Thomas Jefferson depicting Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Strasbourg, Paris, Orleans, Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, Turin, and Milan. L'Enfant's design also envisioned
13992-504: The norm was Columbus time, even on railroads such as the PFtW&;C and LS&MS , which did not run through Columbus. The Santa Fe Railroad used Jefferson City (Missouri) time all the way to its west end at Deming, New Mexico , as did the east–west lines across Texas; Central Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroads used San Francisco time all the way to El Paso . The Northern Pacific Railroad had seven time zones between St. Paul and
14124-552: The north and south sides of the National Mall, respectively, are home to many of Washington's iconic museums, including many Smithsonian Institution buildings and the National Archives Building . Washington hosts 177 foreign embassies ; these maintain nearly 300 buildings and more than 1,600 residential properties, many of which are on a section of Massachusetts Avenue informally known as Embassy Row . The architecture of Washington, D.C., varies greatly and
14256-404: The number of blocks away from the Capitol. Most streets are set out in a grid pattern with east–west streets named with letters (e.g., C Street SW), north–south streets with numbers (e.g., 4th Street NW), and diagonal avenues, many of which are named after states . The City of Washington was bordered on the north by Boundary Street (renamed Florida Avenue in 1890); Rock Creek to the west, and
14388-583: The one in use today, to avoid government action. On October 11, 1883, the heads of the major railroads met in Chicago at the Grand Pacific Hotel and agreed to adopt Allen's proposed system. The members agreed that on Sunday, November 18, 1883, all United States and Canadian railroads would readjust their clocks and watches to reflect the new five-zone system on a telegraph signal from the Allegheny Observatory in Pittsburgh at exactly noon on
14520-568: The port of Georgetown , founded in 1751, and the port city of Alexandria, Virginia , founded in 1749. In 1791 and 1792, a team led by Andrew Ellicott , including Ellicott's brothers Joseph and Benjamin and African American astronomer Benjamin Banneker , whose parents had been enslaved, surveyed the borders of the federal district and placed boundary stones at every mile point; many of these stones are still standing. Both Maryland and Virginia were slave states , and slavery existed in
14652-480: The portion originally donated by Maryland. Confirming the fears of pro-slavery Alexandrians, the Compromise of 1850 outlawed the slave trade in the district, although not slavery itself. The outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861 led to the expansion of the federal government and notable growth in the city's population, including a large influx of freed slaves. President Abraham Lincoln signed
14784-538: The region in the early 17th century. The Nacotchtank , also called the Nacostines by Catholic missionaries , maintained settlements around the Anacostia River in present-day Washington, D.C. Conflicts with European colonists and neighboring tribes ultimately displaced the Piscataway people, some of whom established a new settlement in 1699 near Point of Rocks, Maryland . Nine cities served as capitals to
14916-504: The remaining portion of the district. There have been several unsuccessful efforts to make the district into a state since the 1880s; a statehood bill passed the House of Representatives in 2021 but was not adopted by the U.S. Senate . To become law it would have to be passed by the Senate and signed by president; it would have renamed the city Washington, Douglas Commonwealth and shrunk
15048-491: The same meridian but north of the Arctic Circle, has two sunsets on the same day in early August, one shortly after midnight at the start of the day, and the other shortly before midnight at the end of the day. China extends as far west as 73°E , but all parts of it use UTC+08:00 ( 120°E ), so solar "noon" can occur as late as 15:00 in western portions of China such as Xinjiang . The Afghanistan-China border marks
15180-546: The same time as the others, but differed by one hour from those in the neighboring zones. He advocated his system at several international conferences, including the International Meridian Conference , where it received some consideration. The system has not been directly adopted, but some maps divide the world into 24 time zones and assign letters to them, similarly to Fleming's system. By about 1900, almost all inhabited places on Earth had adopted
15312-417: The same time zone as New York to simplify communications and transactions. A more extreme example is Nome, Alaska , which is at 165°24′W longitude – just west of center of the idealized Samoa Time Zone ( 165°W ). Nevertheless, Nome observes Alaska Time ( 135°W ) with DST so it is slightly more than two hours ahead of the sun in winter and over three in summer. Kotzebue, Alaska , also near
15444-463: The system time to be fetched as a count of 100 ns units since 1601-01-01 00:00:00 UTC. The system registry contains time zone information that includes the offset from UTC and rules that indicate the start and end dates for daylight saving in each zone. Interaction with the user normally uses local time, and application software is able to calculate the time in various zones. Terminal Servers allow remote computers to redirect their time zone settings to
15576-524: The time-zone system. It was a version proposed by William F. Allen, the editor of the Traveler's Official Railway Guide . The borders of its time zones ran through railroad stations, often in major cities. For example, the border between its Eastern and Central time zones ran through Detroit , Buffalo , Pittsburgh , Atlanta , and Charleston . It was inaugurated on Sunday, November 18, 1883, also called "The Day of Two Noons", when each railroad station clock
15708-575: The use of Congress be erected on the banks of the Delaware near Trenton , or of the Potomac , near Georgetown , provided a suitable district can be procured on one of the rivers as aforesaid, for a federal town". In Federalist No. 43 , published January 23, 1788, James Madison argued that the new federal government would need authority over a national capital to provide for its own maintenance and safety. The Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783 emphasized
15840-442: The violence. Many stores and other buildings were burned, and rebuilding from the riots was not completed until the late 1990s. In 1973, Congress enacted the District of Columbia Home Rule Act providing for an elected mayor and 13-member council for the district. In 1975, Walter Washington became the district's first elected and first black mayor. Since the 1980s, the D.C. statehood movement has grown in prominence. In 2016,
15972-410: The war. Similarly, prior to World War II, the Netherlands observed "Amsterdam Time", which was twenty minutes ahead of Greenwich Mean Time. They were obliged to follow German time during the war, and kept it thereafter. In the mid-1970s the Netherlands, as other European states, began observing daylight saving (summer) time. One reason to draw time zone boundaries far to the west of their ideal meridians
16104-471: The weather stations. In 1879, he published a paper titled Report on Standard Time . In 1883, he convinced North American railroad companies to adopt his time-zone system. In 1884, Britain, which had already adopted its own standard time system for England, Scotland, and Wales, helped gather international consent for global time. In time, the American government, influenced in part by Abbe's 1879 paper, adopted
16236-576: The west, and some countries are located entirely outside their ideal time zones. For example, even though the Prime Meridian (0°) passes through Spain and France , they use the mean solar time of 15 degrees east ( Central European Time ) rather than 0 degrees (Greenwich Mean Time). France previously used GMT, but was switched to CET (Central European Time) during the German occupation of the country during World War II and did not switch back after
16368-541: The width of the adjacent street plus 20 feet (6.1 m). Despite popular belief, no law has ever limited buildings to the height of the United States Capitol or the 555-foot (169 m) Washington Monument , which remains the district's tallest structure. City leaders have cited the height restriction as a primary reason that the district has limited affordable housing and its metro area has suburban sprawl and traffic problems. Washington, D.C., still has
16500-407: The workweek. The Washington metropolitan area , which includes parts of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia , is the country's seventh-largest metropolitan area , with a 2023 population of 6.3 million residents. A locally elected mayor and 13-member council have governed the district since 1973, though Congress retains the power to overturn local laws. Washington, D.C., residents are, on
16632-411: Was 40 minutes ahead of the original Amsterdam Time. As of 2017, the Netherlands is in line with Central European Time (GMT+1 in the winter, GMT+2 in the summer, which is significantly different from Amsterdam Time). In 1868, New Zealand was the first country in the world to establish a nationwide standard time. A telegraph cable between New Zealand's two main islands became the instigating factor for
16764-432: Was also given the name railway time , reflecting the important role the railway companies played in bringing it about. The vast majority of Great Britain's public clocks were standardised to GMT by 1855. Until 1883, each United States railroad chose its own time standards. The Pennsylvania Railroad used the "Allegheny Time" system, an astronomical timekeeping service which had been developed by Samuel Pierpont Langley at
16896-415: Was first proposed in 1907 and was in widespread use in 1916 as a wartime measure aimed at conserving coal . Despite controversy , many countries have used it off and on since then; details vary by location and change occasionally. Countries around the equator usually do not observe daylight saving time, since the seasonal difference in sunlight there is minimal. Many computer operating systems include
17028-576: Was indicated as GMT +0h 19m 32.13s until 17 March 1937, after which it was simplified to GMT+0h20m. This time zone was also known as the Loenen time or Gorinchem time , as this was the exact time in both Loenen and Gorinchem . At noon in Amsterdam, it was 11:40 in London and 12:40 in Berlin . The shift to the current Central European Time zone took place on 16 May 1940. The German occupiers ordered
17160-722: Was inducted into the North America Railway Hall of Fame in the category "National: Technical Innovations." The Dominion of Newfoundland , whose capital St. John's falls almost exactly midway between the meridians anchoring the Atlantic Time Zone and the Greenland Time Zone , voted in 1935 to create a half-hour offset time zone known as the Newfoundland Time Zone , at three and a half hours behind Greenwich time. In
17292-501: Was reset as standard-time noon was reached within each time zone. The North American zones were named Intercolonial, Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific. Within a year 85% of all cities with populations over 10,000 (about 200 cities) were using standard time. A notable exception was Detroit (located about halfway between the meridians of Eastern and Central time), which kept local time until 1900, then tried Central Standard Time, local mean time , and Eastern Standard Time (EST) before
17424-667: Was very little in the way of time zone support for JavaScript . Essentially the programmer had to extract the UTC offset by instantiating a time object, getting a GMT time from it, and differencing the two. This does not provide a solution for more complex daylight saving variations, such as divergent DST directions between northern and southern hemispheres. ECMA-402, the standard on Internationalization API for JavaScript, provides ways of formatting Time Zones. However, due to size constraint, some implementations or distributions do not include it. The DateTime object in Perl supports all entries in
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