Traditional Chinese 國家標準時間 | Simplified Chinese 国家标准时间 | |
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Hanyu Pinyin Bopomofo ㄍㄨㄛˊ ㄐㄧㄚ ㄅㄧㄠ ㄓㄨㄣˇ ㄕˊ ㄐㄧㄢ Gwoyeu Romatzyh Gwojia Biaujuun Shyrjian Wade–Giles Kuo²-chia¹ Piao¹-chun³ Shih²-chien¹ | ||
National Standard Time (Chinese: 國家標準時間; pinyin: Guójiā Biāozhǔn Shíjiān; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Kok-ka Piau-chún Sî-kan, see below) is the official time zone in Taiwan defined by an UTC offset of +08:00. This standard is also known as Taiwan Time (臺灣時間), Taipei Time (臺北時間) and historically as Chungyuan Standard Time (中原標準時間) until the early 2000s.
Contents
History
The first time zone standard in Taiwan was enforced in January 1, 1896, the second year of Taiwan under Japanese rule. The standard is called Western Standard Time (西部標準時) with time offset of UTC+08:00, based on 120°E longitude. In October 1, 1937, the Western Standard Time zone is abolished and the Central Standard Time (中央標準時), with time offset of UTC+09:00, was enforced in the entire country of Japan including Taiwan. This time was used until the end of the Second World War. In September 21, 1945, the Governor-General of Taiwan announced to revoke the order in 1937.
After the war's end, Taiwan was annexed to the five time zones system of the Republic of China and was classified in the Chungyuan Standard Time (中原標準時間) with time offset of UTC+08:00. After the Chinese Civil War in 1949, the Central Government of the Republic of China retreated to Taiwan and lost nearly all the territory of mainland China. From this time, the five time zones system was no longer implemented except Chungyuan Standard Time on Taiwan. After the 1990s, the democratization movement brought more localization thinking in Taiwan. The term Chungyuan (Zhongyuan), which means the Central Plain of China, is considered as Sinocentrism. Thus the government on Taiwan now favors the term National Standard Time (國家標準時間) as official use. Along with the governmental standard, popular alternatives include Taiwan Standard Time (臺灣標準時間), Taipei Time (臺北時間) and Formosan Time (寶島時間).
Daylight saving time was implemented in Taiwan after the Second World War on the summer of 1946–1961, 1974, 1975, 1979.
Present development
National Standard Time is now managed by the Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection (BSMI) under the Ministry of Economic Affairs. The time is released according to the caesium atomic clocks aggregated by National Standard Time and Frequency Laboratory under Chunghwa Telecom after consulting the data provided by Bureau International des Poids et Measures.
National Standard Time used in Taiwan is also the same as Brunei, P.R.China (including Hong Kong and Macau), Malaysia and Singapore.
IANA time zone database
The IANA time zone database contains one zone for Taiwan, named Asia/Taipei.