Time Zone Finder — What Time Zone Am I In?

Find the time zone, current local time, UTC offset, and DST status for any address, city, or coordinate. Tap Detect My Location, click anywhere on the world map, or search a place. Live clocks for 8 major world cities and a side-by-side comparison vs your local time. Free, worldwide, no sign-up.

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Click the map, search a place, paste coordinates, or use Detect My Location to find the time zone and current local time for any point on Earth.

Definition

What time zone am I in?

Tap "Detect My Location" — the tool reads your GPS and looks up the IANA time zone for your coordinates (e.g. America/New_York). You get the IANA name, the human-readable name (Eastern Standard Time / EST), the current local time, and whether DST is active.

Coverage

Does it work worldwide?

Yes. The tool uses the IANA time zone database (also called the tz database), which covers all ~440 time zones in the world. Click any point — land, ocean, or polar — and it returns the correct zone, including unusual ones like Asia/Kathmandu (UTC+5:45) and Pacific/Chatham (UTC+12:45).

Accuracy

How accurate is the lookup?

Time zone polygons come from the timezone-boundary-builder project, the same dataset used by Apple, Microsoft, and most modern operating systems. DST rules and historical changes are tracked by the IANA tz database, updated several times per year as countries change their clocks.

Cost

Is the tool free?

Yes — no sign-up, no API key, no usage limits. Equivalent commercial APIs (Google Time Zone, IPstack) charge per request. This tool runs the lookup server-side using the open-source geo-tz library.

On this page

What is a time zone?
How to find your time zone
Major world time zones
Daylight saving explained
Use cases
Methodology & data sources
How this compares to alternatives
Limitations & accuracy notes
Glossary
Frequently asked questions

What is a time zone, and what time zone am I in?

A time zone is a region of Earth that observes the same standard time. The naive picture is that the planet is divided into 24 zones, each one hour wide and 15° of longitude across. The reality is messier: there are actually about 440 distinct time zones in the IANA database, because political borders, half-hour offsets (India, Newfoundland), quarter-hour offsets (Nepal, Chatham Islands), and country-specific DST rules all create exceptions.

What time zone am I in?Tap the "Detect My Location" button at the top of the tool. The tool reads your GPS coordinates, looks them up in the IANA tz database via the open-source geo-tz library, and returns your time zone — the IANA identifier (like America/New_York), the human-readable name (Eastern Standard Time), the current UTC offset, the live local time, and whether daylight saving is in effect right now. The whole process takes about a second.

People look up time zones for meetings, travel, calls with family abroad, scheduling cron jobs and deployments, planning trips, making sense of timestamps in databases, and just plain curiosity. Whatever your reason, this tool gives a complete answer: not just the zone but the live local time, the offset, the DST status, and a side-by-side comparison with 8 major world cities.

How to find your time zone

Pick a location

Tap "Detect My Location" to use GPS — your local time zone appears instantly. Or click anywhere on the world map, search an address or city, or paste coordinates and press Enter.

Read the live local time and offset

The hero card shows the current local time at that location, ticking every second, with the IANA time zone name, UTC offset, and a DST badge if daylight saving is in effect right now.

Compare against major world cities

Below the hero you get a row of live clocks for New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Dubai, Tokyo, Sydney, and Honolulu — each labeled with the time difference relative to your selected location. Use the cards to plan calls and meetings.

Major world time zones

A reference table of common time zones. Where two offsets are listed (e.g. UTC−5 / −4), the first is standard time and the second is daylight saving time.

City	IANA name	UTC offset	DST
New York, USA	`America/New_York`	UTC−5 / −4	Yes (Mar–Nov)
Los Angeles, USA	`America/Los_Angeles`	UTC−8 / −7	Yes (Mar–Nov)
London, UK	`Europe/London`	UTC+0 / +1	Yes (Mar–Oct)
Paris, France	`Europe/Paris`	UTC+1 / +2	Yes (Mar–Oct)
Cairo, Egypt	`Africa/Cairo`	UTC+2 / +3	Yes (Apr–Oct)
Moscow, Russia	`Europe/Moscow`	UTC+3	No (since 2011)
Dubai, UAE	`Asia/Dubai`	UTC+4	No
Mumbai, India	`Asia/Kolkata`	UTC+5:30	No
Kathmandu, Nepal	`Asia/Kathmandu`	UTC+5:45	No
Singapore	`Asia/Singapore`	UTC+8	No
Tokyo, Japan	`Asia/Tokyo`	UTC+9	No
Sydney, Australia	`Australia/Sydney`	UTC+10 / +11	Yes (Oct–Apr)
Auckland, NZ	`Pacific/Auckland`	UTC+12 / +13	Yes (Sep–Apr)
Honolulu, Hawaii	`Pacific/Honolulu`	UTC−10	No

Daylight Saving Time explained

Daylight Saving Time (DST) is the practice of advancing clocks by one hour during summer to align active hours with sunlight. About 70 countries (covering ~1 billion people) observe DST in some form. Most of Asia, Africa, and tropical regions do not.

Region	DST starts	DST ends
United States & Canada	2nd Sunday of March	1st Sunday of November
European Union & UK	Last Sunday of March	Last Sunday of October
Australia (parts)	1st Sunday of October	1st Sunday of April
Mexico (most)	Abolished 2022	—
Russia	Abolished 2011	—
Arizona (excl. Navajo Nation)	Never observed	—
Hawaii	Never observed	—

DST rules change regularly as countries adopt or abolish them. The IANA tz database is updated several times per year to track these changes, and geo-tz ships new releases shortly after each update. The DST badge in the result hero tells you whether DST is currently active for your selected location.

Who uses time zone lookups

1. International meetings and remote teams

Distributed teams use time zone lookups to schedule meetings without offending anyone. The world-clock cards show the current time in 8 major cities so you can pick a slot that works for everyone.

EXAMPLE

Meeting with a teammate in Tokyo. Your local time: 9:00 AM PT. Tokyo time: 1:00 AM the next day — too early. Push to 4:00 PM PT and Tokyo becomes 8:00 AM — workable.

2. Travel planning

Travelers check destination time zones to plan calls home, sleep schedules, and arrival timing. The DST badge tells you whether your destination is currently on daylight saving — important for arrival timing in March, October, and November.

3. Scheduling cron jobs and deployments

Engineers scheduling automated jobs need the IANA time zone for the relevant region. A cron schedule for "9 AM Tokyo time" should use Asia/Tokyo, not a fixed UTC offset, so DST adjustments are handled automatically.

4. Database design and migrations

Database engineers store timestamps in UTC and convert at the edge using each user's time zone. This tool gives the canonical IANA name to store in user profiles or location columns.

5. Customer support and SLA tracking

Support teams handling customers in multiple regions use time zones to honor response-time SLAs and avoid contacting people at 3 AM. The world-clock cards give an instant view of working hours across regions.

6. Legal and compliance work

Contracts, court filings, and statutory deadlines are typically in the local time of the relevant jurisdiction. Lawyers verify the time zone to compute cutoffs and avoid late filings.

7. Astronomy and event timing

Astronomers, solar viewers, and event planners convert times for solar eclipses, meteor showers, and rocket launches into local times for viewers around the world.

8. Education and reference

Teachers and students use time zone lookups to learn world geography, understand why countries are on different clocks, and study the politics of time zones (China spans 5 geographic zones but uses only one).

Methodology & data sources

Time zone data

Time zone polygons come from the timezone-boundary-builder project, which builds shapefiles from OpenStreetMap administrative boundaries and the IANA tz database. The lookup runs server-side via the geo-tz Node library. DST rules and historical changes are tracked by the official IANA tz database, updated several times per year.

Live local time

Once the IANA name is known, the tool uses the browser's Intl.DateTimeFormat API with the timeZone option to format the current system time in that zone. The display ticks every second using a 1-second JavaScript interval. As long as your system clock is correct (which it normally is, since modern OSes sync via NTP), the displayed time is accurate to the second.

UTC offset calculation

UTC offset is computed by formatting the same instant in two zones (UTC and the target zone) and taking the difference. This automatically accounts for DST and historical offset changes. The result is shown in ±HH:MM format and supports non-hour offsets like UTC+5:30 (India) and UTC+5:45 (Nepal).

DST detection

DST is detected by computing the UTC offset on January 1 and July 1 of the current year, then comparing today's offset to the smaller of those two. If today's offset is greater, DST is in effect. This works correctly for both Northern and Southern Hemisphere zones.

Address autocomplete & reverse geocoding

Address suggestions in the search box come from Photon, and the place name shown for each result comes from Nominatim — both built on OpenStreetMap.

How this compares to alternatives

Time zone lookups are offered by several APIs and apps. Here's an honest side-by-side.

Source	Free?	Visual	Bulk	Sign-up	Notes
SimpleMapLab (this tool)	Yes	Map + live clocks	Click any point, instant	No	IANA tz database via geo-tz
Google Time Zone API	Free tier	API only	Paid per request	API key	$5 per 1K requests after free tier
IANA tz database (raw)	Yes	Text files	Bulk download	No	Authoritative source, raw data
TimeAndDate.com	Yes (UI)	Web UI	No	No	City lookup, not coordinate-based
Phone OS (Settings)	Yes	Native UI	Per device	No	Only your current location

Limitations & accuracy notes

Accuracy depends on system clock.The displayed local time is your system clock formatted to the target zone. If your computer's clock is wrong (rare with modern NTP), the displayed time will be wrong by the same amount.
Boundary precision is OSM-level.Time zone polygons are built from OpenStreetMap administrative boundaries. At country borders, accuracy is ~10 m. In disputed regions, the polygon follows OSM's convention, which may not match every government's view.
Historical changes only since 1970. The IANA tz database accurately tracks DST and offset changes since 1970. For dates before then, the database falls back to local mean time, which may not match historical record-keeping.
DST rules change. Countries occasionally change their DST rules, and the tz database is updated to match. Until the new release reaches this tool, the displayed status may be outdated for the affected country.
Server-side lookup requires internet. The time zone lookup calls a server endpoint. If your connection is offline, the lookup will fail. For offline use, install a tz database wrapper locally.

Glossary

Time zone: A region of Earth that observes the same standard time. There are ~440 distinct zones in the IANA database, more than the simple "24 zones around the globe" picture suggests.
IANA tz database: The authoritative open-source database of world time zones, also called the "tz database" or "Olson database". Maintained by IANA and updated several times per year. Used by Linux, macOS, Java, Python, browsers, and most modern software.
IANA name: A canonical identifier for a time zone in the format Region/City, e.g. America/New_York, Europe/London, Asia/Tokyo. Always use the IANA name in software — never the abbreviation, which can be ambiguous.
UTC offset: The number of hours and minutes a time zone is ahead of or behind Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). New York is UTC−5 in winter, UTC−4 in summer (during DST). Some zones have non-hour offsets like UTC+5:30 (India) or UTC+5:45 (Nepal).
UTC: Coordinated Universal Time — the global time standard, used by GPS, scientific work, and the Internet. UTC is the same everywhere on Earth and does not observe daylight saving. It replaced GMT as the formal standard in 1972.
DST (Daylight Saving Time): A practice of advancing clocks by one hour during summer to align active hours with sunlight. Observed in the US, most of Europe, parts of Australia and South America. Tropical countries and large parts of Asia and Africa do not observe DST.
Time zone abbreviation: Short codes like EST, PST, GMT, JST. They are convenient but ambiguous — "CST" can mean US Central, China Standard, or Cuba Standard. Software should always use IANA names instead.
Solar time: Time based purely on the sun's position. Each degree of longitude corresponds to 4 minutes of solar time. Political time zones are roughly aligned with solar time but adjusted to follow national borders.

Related tools and resources

To find latitude and longitude for any location, use the Latitude & Longitude Finder. To find the elevation, use the Elevation Finder. For distance and radius work, see Distance Between Two Places and the Map Radius Tool. Browsing the US by state? Each state has a county directory:

California Texas Florida New York Pennsylvania Illinois Ohio Georgia North Carolina Michigan New Jersey Virginia Washington Arizona Massachusetts Colorado

Frequently asked questions

Tap the "Detect My Location" button. The tool reads your GPS coordinates, looks them up in the IANA time zone database (via geo-tz), and shows your time zone — IANA name, display name, UTC offset, current local time, and DST status — within 1–2 seconds.

It works in two steps. First it gets your latitude and longitude (from GPS, an address search, a coordinate paste, or a map click). Then it looks up which time zone polygon contains that coordinate using the geo-tz library, which ships the official tz database boundary file.

A canonical identifier in the format Region/City — for example America/New_York, Europe/London, Asia/Tokyo. The IANA tz database uses these names because abbreviations like EST or CST are ambiguous (CST could be US Central, China Standard, or Cuba Standard time).

The number of hours a time zone is ahead of or behind Coordinated Universal Time. UTC is the global reference. New York is UTC−5 in winter, UTC−4 during daylight saving. India is UTC+5:30 year-round. Nepal is UTC+5:45 year-round. The tool shows the current offset including DST adjustments.

It uses the IANA tz database via the timezone-boundary-builder project — the same dataset shipped by Apple, Microsoft, Linux, Java, and most modern operating systems. Boundary precision is at the political-line level, with ~10 m accuracy at most country borders.

A few zones use non-hour offsets for historical or political reasons. Nepal (Asia/Kathmandu) is UTC+5:45 — set 15 minutes ahead of India to be visibly distinct. India is UTC+5:30. Newfoundland is UTC−3:30. The Chatham Islands are UTC+12:45. The tool handles all of these correctly.

It compares the current UTC offset to the offset on January 1 and July 1 of the same year. If today's offset is greater than the smaller of those two, DST is currently active. The tool shows a "DST active" badge in the hero when this is the case.

Yes — the time updates every second using the browser's system clock formatted to the selected time zone via Intl.DateTimeFormat. As long as your computer's clock is correct (which it normally is, since modern operating systems sync via NTP), the displayed time is accurate to the second.

Usually because you're traveling and your phone hasn't auto-updated, or you've manually overridden the system time zone. The tool always reports the time zone for the GPS coordinates you provide, regardless of your device's setting.

Google Time Zone is a paid API ($5 per 1K requests after a free tier) requiring an API key. This tool is free, has no rate limits, and runs the same kind of lookup against the same underlying tz database. For UI use, it's more convenient. For programmatic batch lookups, both work.

Yes. Look up the time zone of your meeting location, then read the "right now in major cities" cards to see the time difference to NYC, LA, London, Paris, Dubai, Tokyo, Sydney, and Honolulu. For a side-by-side world clock, look at all 8 city cards together.

Yes. The IANA tz database divides the oceans into nautical time zones based on longitude (Etc/GMT+5, Etc/GMT-3, etc.). Click anywhere over water and the tool returns the correct zone.

Yes — including Antarctica, which has its own zones (Antarctica/McMurdo, Antarctica/South_Pole) tied to the research stations. The tool handles polar coordinates correctly.

It varies by country. In the US, DST runs from the second Sunday of March to the first Sunday of November. In the EU, from the last Sunday of March to the last Sunday of October. Many countries don't observe DST at all (most of Asia, Africa, and the tropics).

Several countries have abolished DST in recent years — Russia in 2011, Turkey in 2016, parts of Mexico in 2022. The EU voted in 2019 to abolish DST but implementation is delayed. The US and Canada still observe it federally, with Arizona and Hawaii as US exceptions.

For practical purposes, the same. GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) is the historical standard based on solar time at Greenwich. UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) is the modern atomic-clock-based replacement, introduced in 1972. They never differ by more than 0.9 seconds.

Yes. The IANA tz database is in the public domain. The boundary polygons (timezone-boundary-builder) are licensed under ODbL via OpenStreetMap. The geo-tz library is MIT-licensed. Attribution to SimpleMapLab is appreciated where reasonable.

Because Boston, NYC, Washington DC, Atlanta, and most of the US East Coast all share the same time zone. The IANA tz database names each zone after its most populous city — so the entire Eastern Time region uses America/New_York as its canonical identifier.

The IANA tz database is updated several times per year as countries change their rules. The geo-tz library publishes new releases shortly after each tz database update. As of 2025, the current data reflects all known DST rules through 2025.

Yes — the map, search, GPS button, live clocks, and result cards all work on phones and tablets. The "Detect My Location" button is the easiest way to find your own time zone from a phone.

Data sources & methodology

Time zone polygons and DST rules from the IANA Time Zone Database via the timezone-boundary-builder project, served through the geo-tz library. Live time formatting via Intl.DateTimeFormat in the browser. Map rendering by MapLibre GL JS with OpenFreeMap tiles. Address autocomplete by Photon and reverse geocoding by Nominatim.