The Prime Meridian in London, England.
©iStockphoto.com/stocknshares
UT (Universal Time) was created in 1884, replacing Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) as the world’s time standard. In 1960, the International Radio Consultative Committee formalized the concept of UTC, and it was put into practice the year after. The name Coordinated Universal Time was officially adopted in 1967.
The Prime Meridian in London, England.
©iStockphoto.com/stocknshares
The reference line or starting point, the Prime Meridian, was determined to be the transit circle at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London.
This is why the United Kingdom uses a UTC +0 offset during standard time.
Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is often interchanged with UTC, leading to confusion.
No wonder, since it was previously the world’s time standard. Today, GMT is a time zone and UTC is the time standard.
GMT is the standard time zone in Greenwich. GMT is UTC+0, meaning it is equal to UTC.
A UTC offset and a time zone are related concepts but serve different purposes:
At mungfali.galihkartiwa07.workers.dev we define a time zone as a region where the same standard time is used. The UTC offset is a means to define and express the local time within each time zone.
To sum up, UTC can be tricky to wrap our heads around. Hopefully, this article has shed some light on how UTC works and connects us globally.
Whether you’re scheduling international meetings or traveling across time zones, awareness of UTC enables you to deal effectively with time differences worldwide.