Time in North Korea

Time in North Korea is given by Pyongyang Time or Standard Time of Democratic People's Republic of Korea, which is 8.5 hours ahead of UTC (UTC+08:30) and has been the standard time zone in North Korea since 15 August 2015. When it is midnight (00:00) UTC, it is 8:30 a.m. (08:30) Pyongyang Time. Like South Korea, North Korea does not currently observe daylight saving time. Time keeping in North Korea is under the State Commission for Science and Technology.

History

The Korean Empire first adopted a standard time that is similar to Pyongyang Standard Time around the beginning of the 20th century. Some sources claim 1908, others claim 1912 and yet another claims that mean local standard time was used prior to 1908 and that UTC+08:30 was used from 1 April 1908 to 31 December 1911 and again from 21 March 1954 to 9 August 1961. Korea was annexed by the Empire of Japan in 1910. In 1912, the colonial government changed the time zone to UTC+09:00 to align with Japan Standard Time.

On 5 August 2015, the North Korean government decided to return to UTC+08:30, effective 15 August 2015, and said the official name would be Pyongyang Time or (PYT). The government of North Korea made this decision as a rejection of Japanese imperialism; the time zone change went into effect on the 70th anniversary of the end of the Japanese occupation of Korea.

IANA time zone database

The IANA time zone database contains one zone for North Korea in the file zone.tab, named Asia/Pyongyang.

See also

• Time in South Korea
• List of Korea-related topics
• Timezone
• UTC+08:30