On Thu, 19 Mar 2009 00:04:51 +0100, Magnus Danielson wrote: >Arnold, >> To remove another questionmark partly: >> >>> I suspect several countries (such as US, Germany etc. etc) to be UTC >>> based, but I do not know for sure. >>> >> The german time is fixed by law to MEZ=CET, the Central European >> >> Time, which again is fixed by the same law to the Universal >> Time Coordinated (UTC) as MEZ = UTC+1h. >Many thanks! >If you have web-pointers to the respective texts let me know. Of course Magnus, no problem. But it would be helpful to be multilingual, because such laws are very seldom translated: Easier to start from the rear: The german PTB is charged to distribute the legal time for Germany (done via DCF77) , as defined in the german 'Zeitgesetz' as summarized here: http: //www.ptb.de/de/org/4/44/441/dars.htm "Das Zeitgesetz von 1978 (Bundesgesetzblatt 1978, Teil I, S. 1110-1111), zuletzt geändert durch Artikel 1 des Gesetzes vom 11. Juli 2008 (BGBl. Teil I, S. 1185) und nun umfassend "Einheiten- und Zeitgesetz" genannt, legt u. a. die gesetzliche Zeit in Deutschland und die Rolle der PTB fest." Interesting statement in that law (excerpt) : "§ 4 Gesetzliche Zeit (1) Die gesetzliche Zeit ist die mitteleuropäische Zeit. Diese ist bestimmt durch die koordinierte Weltzeit unter Hinzufügung einer Stunde." If I interprete correct, this part implies clearly that MEZ = CET i s based fix on UTC ! I can derive therefore that all countries using officially CET are fixed to UTC as well !! >> According to the pic showing the time zones (annex: >> Les fuseaux horaires et les décalages par pays au 1 juin 2000 >> Crédit: H.M.N.A.O.) most countries are affixed to UTC. > Well, it may not be exactly right... On Thu, 19 Mar 2009 00:11:22 +0100, Magnus Danielson wrote: > If you look at the map Arnold linked to, you will see that France sits > very neatly into the Zulu-timezone. Infact, France is better served by > it then GB. I have enjoyed the incorrectness of France time-zone-wise on > my many travels to France, so I am not complaining from a practical > point of view, but it would not be my first choice if I would choose > something for France. > Map: > http://media4.obspm.fr/public/amc/images/mesure-temps/images/849.gif everything possible, because as already mentied in this thread, most people may still not have understood the 'fine differences', I doubt it at least for most politicians ... ;-) (perhaps some countries do really use today UTC and did not change the expression 'GMT' in their law for that reason incl. Denmark?) Anyway, if one is interested to have that a. m. 'french' time zone map in english and in very high resolution, have a look here: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/world_tzones.php or directly download: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/graphics/TimeZoneMap0802.png http://aa.usno.navy.mil/graphics/TimeZoneMap0802.jpg regards Arnold