Time and Date - Europe - European Union - Russia - Time Zones

Our planet evolves around itself and therefore captures the light of the sun at different points in time depending on where you live. This means that everywhere on the planet the sun rises and sets at different times. For example, the sun rises about an hour earlier in Berlin than in Paris.

The concept of time zones has been developed to allow people living in the same region, country or block of countries to share the same time frame. For people living in the same time zone it is easy to make appointments, to tune in to their favorite shows at the right time and to otherwise organize their lives.

Since there are many different time zones it has been necessary to choose one time zone as a reference. The original reference time zone is called Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) because it uses the Greenwich Meridian, at zero degrees longitude, to determine the exact time. The current reference time zone is called Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) and is very close to GMT.

The time zones used across Europe and Russia vary between UTC minus four hours (UTC-4) and UTC plus twelve hours (UTC+12).

One of the reasons for these important time differences is that France counts a number of overseas territories that cannot use the same time zone as France because of the great distances that separate them from the mainland.

With 11 different time zones, from UTC plus two hours (UTC+2) to UTC plus twelve hours (UTC+12), Russia spans more time zones than any other country in the world. Note that part of Russia actually lies in Asia.

To save energy some countries change to Summer Time, or Daylight Saving Time, during the spring and summer months. In this case the clock is advanced by one hour starting on the last Sunday in March and ending on the last Sunday in October.

The time zone most commonly used across the European Union is Central European Time (CET).

Central European Time (CET) is one hour ahead of UTC (UTC+1) while Central European Summer Time (CEST) is two hours ahead of UTC (UTC+2).

Western European Time (WET) is the same as UTC while Western European Summer Time (WEST) is one hour ahead of UTC (UTC+1).

Eastern European Time (EET) is two hours ahead of UTC (UTC+2) while Eastern European Summer Time (EEST) is three hours ahead of UTC (UTC+3)