Saving Daylight…
It’s about time
Ohh the times, they are a changing
The clocks go forward this weekend in the UK, as do in many parts of the world around this time
The concept of changing clocks was first proposed almost 130 years ago in New Zealand (1895), by Entomologist George Hudson who wanted the extra sunlight for his research (proposing a shift of 2 hours, twice a year)
It was separately proposed by William Willett to the UK’s parliament in 1907, but the first place to implement Daylight Savings Time (DST) was the Canadian city of Port Arthur in 1908. Most other Canadian provinces followed in the coming years with a number of European countries following in 1916 to save fuel during WWI (Germany and Austria being the first to implement nationwide)
Today, there are c. 70 nations globally that change their clocks, mostly in March and October every year, although this is only 40% of all countries
While it feels like DST is a stable fact of life, in reality it is still being adjusted by plenty of countries
Who are changing their clocks, and when?
Most countries in Europe and North America change their clocks with only a few exceptions
There are 40 European countries that use DST, with only 4 that don’t: Turkey, Russia, Belarus and Iceland
While the US, Canada and Mexico all change their clocks between winter and summer, some states in abstain (e.g. parts of Arizona and Hawaiiv use Winter-time all year round)
Most Asian and African countries don’t change clocks at all, with 5 places in the Middle East being the only ones to do so: Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine
Cuba brings its clocks forward earlier than any other country, at midnight on the second Sunday of March (although admittedly all other countries in North America change their clocks two hours later)
The place to change their clocks latest is Palestine. You have to wait until the last Saturday in April before DST is implemented there
Almost all countries move their clocks forward by 1 hour, but there is 1 exception to this: Lord Howe Island in Australia only brings their clocks forward by 30 minutes
How many countries have gotten rid of DST?
In total, over 70 countries have once had some form of Daylight Savings Time and chosen to get rid of it. The most recent examples of this are:
- Iran, Syria and Jordan have all abolished DST in the last year
- Fiji and Samoa both chose to remove DST in 2021
- Brazil was one of the last nations in South America to observe DST before it removed it in 2019 (Paraguay and most of Chile are the only ones remaining)
On top of this, there are 50 countries that have never changed their clocks, mostly in Africa
And how frequently do these countries change their rules?
For some countries, DST has been in place for a long time (i.e. for the last 107 years in Britain). But for others, they constantly change their mind. For example:
- Uruguay has had among the most changes to its DST rules. In total, its implemented DST 8 times: in 1923–1926, 1933–1943, 1959–1960, 1965–1970, 1972, 1974–1980, 1987–1993, and 2004–2015
- Next up is Portugal, who has introduced DST 7 times in just over a century, although the gaps between each change have normally only lasted a couple of years: in 1916–1921, 1924, 1926–1929, 1931–1932, 1934–1949, 1951–1965, and since 1977 to the present day
- Morocco has sporadically tried DST, giving it a go on 6 occasions: in 1939–1945, 1950, 1967, 1974, 1976–1978, and 2008–2018. Since 2018, it observes UTC+1 all year round, except during Ramadan where it switches to UTC+0
- Algeria has implemented DST on 6 separate occasions: in 1916, 1939 (for only one Autumn), 1944, 1971, 1977 and 1980. On almost all occasions, it was abolished within one year and was most recently removed in 1981
- Spain also switched to DST 6 times in its history, with Estonia, Israel and Syria changing their DST rules on 5 separate occasions
These changes can cause quite a bit of disruption, especially when countries decide to change their rules at short notice. Lebanon decided to push the date at which its clocks went forward this year by almost a month to 20th April, although the decision was only made a couple of days before the original DST date
Egypt, though, is an even more chaotic example. It first introduced DST during WWII, like a lot of other countries, and then proceeded to remove and re-introduce it 4 more times
One of the most recent was when they reintroduced Daylight Savings in 2014, but processed to change their clocks 4 times (not two), once for Daylight Savings and the other to reduce the burden of those fasting for Ramadan
However, some holiday destinations in the country chose to ignore this, to reduce confusion for their international customers, essentially creating “resort time”
Then in 2016, the Eygptian government decided to drop DST, giving the country 3 days notice before clocks were supposed to go forward
Now, the country’s parliament has decided to re-introduce DST once again, with the aim of conserving energy. This meant it went against a broad trend of removing DST, being the only country to introduce it in 2023 so far
Check out more GoodStats about Society:
- The world is reaching con-census; Have you been enumerated?
- Alllllll the people… So many people!
- Till death us do part; Well, not for everyone…
