Africa, the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, spans across six different time zone offsets from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC): UTC−01:00 to UTC+04:00.[2][3] As Africa straddles the equator and tropics, there is little change in daylight hours throughout the year[4] and as such daylight saving time is currently observed in only two countries, Morocco and Egypt. However, it was previously observed in several other countries.[5][6]
Before the wide adoption of standard time zones, local mean time was widely used in railway time for train timetables and telegraphic time for telegraphy.[7] Local mean time is a solar time that corrects the variations of local apparent time by forming a uniform time scale at a specific longitude;[8] for instance, Liberia observed UTC−0:44:30 instead of an approximate offset such as UTC−01:00.[9] British Rhodesia (at the time administered by the private British South Africa Company) was the first area in Africa to adopt standard time, switching to UTC+02:30 on 1 August 1899 as the previous time standards proved problematic for the railway system.[10] Other countries followed suit, and by 1912, most Portuguese,[11] French and British territories had adopted a standard offset.[12] Liberia was the last country in Africa to adopt a standard offset, doing so on 7 January 1972.[13]
Names for the offsets vary by country and jurisdiction:[3] in Africa, UTC+01:00 is commonly known as "West Africa Time", however Algeria,[14] Morocco and Tunisia[15] designate the offset by its European name, "Central European Time"; UTC+02:00 – commonly known as "Central Africa Time" – is designated as "South African Standard Time" by Eswatini, Lesotho and South Africa,[16] whilst Egypt[17] and Libya[18] designate it by its European name "Eastern European Time". Cape Verde is the only country in Africa which observes UTC−01:00, where it is known as Cape Verde Time (CVT); thirteen countries observe UTC±00:00, fourteen[a] observe UTC+01:00, sixteen[a] observe UTC+02:00, nine observe UTC+03:00, and two (Mauritius and Seychelles) observe UTC+04:00, where the offset is designated as Mauritius Time (MUT)[19] and Seychelles Time (SCT)[20] respectively.[3]
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