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Daylight saving time

World map. Europe, most of North America, parts of southern South America and southeastern Australia, and a few other places use DST. Most of equatorial Africa and a few other places near the equator have never used DST as the seasons are not marked by drastic changes in light. The rest of the landmass is marked as formerly using DST.
Daylight saving time regions:
  Formerly used daylight saving
  Never used daylight saving

Daylight saving time (DST), also referred to as daylight saving(s), daylight savings time, daylight time (United States and Canada), or summer time (United Kingdom, European Union, and others), is the practice of advancing clocks to make better use of the longer daylight available during summer, so that darkness falls at a later clock time.[1][2] The typical implementation of DST is to set clocks forward by one hour in spring or late winter, and to set clocks back by one hour to standard time in the autumn (or fall in North American English, hence the mnemonic: "spring forward and fall back").

DST is not usually observed near the Equator, where sunrise and sunset times do not vary enough to justify it; conversely, it is often not observed in places at high latitudes where a one-hour clock shift would provide little benefit because of the wide variations in sunrise and sunset times. Consequently, only a minority of the world's population uses DST. Some countries observe it only in some regions for example: it is observed only by some Australian states depending on latitude and by all states in the United States except for Hawaii and Arizona (within the latter, however, the Navajo Nation does observe it, conforming to federal practice).[3]

Historically, several ancient societies adopted seasonal changes to their timekeeping to make better use of daylight; Roman timekeeping even included changes to water clocks to accommodate this. However, these were changes to the time divisions of the day rather than setting the whole clock forward. In a satirical letter to the editor of the Journal de Paris in 1784, Benjamin Franklin suggested that if Parisians could only wake up earlier in the summer they would economize on candle and oil usage, but he did not propose changing the clocks.[4][5] In 1895, New Zealand entomologist and astronomer George Hudson made the first realistic proposal to change clocks by two hours every spring to the Wellington Philosophical Society, but this was not implemented until 1928 and in another form.[6] In 1907, William Willett proposed the adoption of British Summer Time as a way to save energy but although seriously considered by Parliament it was not implemented until 1916.[7]

The first implementation of DST was by Port Arthur (today merged into Thunder Bay), in Ontario, Canada, in 1908, but only locally, not nationally.[8][9] The first nation-wide implementations were by the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires, both starting on 30 April 1916. Since then many countries have adopted DST at various times since then, particularly since the 1970s energy crisis.

  1. ^ Daylight Saving Time Explained, retrieved 21 May 2023
  2. ^ Verify: Answering your questions about daylight saving time, retrieved 21 May 2023
  3. ^ "Arizona Time Zone". Timetemperature.com. Archived from the original on 2 November 2021. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  4. ^ "Did Ben Franklin Invent Daylight Saving Time?". The Franklin Institute. 7 July 2017. Archived from the original on 1 June 2021. Retrieved 5 August 2021.
  5. ^ "Full text – Benjamin Franklin – The Journal of Paris, 1784". www.webexhibits.org. Archived from the original on 15 November 2017. Retrieved 5 August 2021.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference DNZB-Hudson was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Ogle was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ "Time to change your clocks – but why?". Northern Ontario Travel. 8 March 2018. Archived from the original on 10 October 2018. Retrieved 9 October 2018.
  9. ^ Daylight Saving Time, archived from the original on 9 October 2018, retrieved 8 October 2018

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