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Glossary Data & Encoding

UTC

UTC is the global reference time standard from which all time zones are defined as offsets.

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In more detail

A zone such as +02:00 is two hours ahead of UTC. UTC does not change for daylight saving, so storing times in UTC and converting for display avoids most date bugs. The abbreviation Z in 14:30:05Z means UTC.

Try these tools

Time Zone Calculator

Convert time between different global time zones with our easy-to-use calculator.

Military Time Converter

Convert 12-hour AM/PM times to 24-hour and military time and back, with a full conversion chart from 0000 to 2300.

See also

  • Glossary Unix timestamp
    A Unix timestamp is the number of seconds since 00:00:00 UTC on 1 January 1970, the "Unix epoch".
  • Glossary ISO 8601
    ISO 8601 is the international standard for writing dates and times unambiguously, in the order year, month, day.
  • Guide How Dates and Time Zones Work
    UTC, offsets and time zones, daylight saving, Unix time and the 2038 problem, leap years, week numbers and day counts.
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