Information about the local time of the country is important both for tourists using different schedules, and for business partners of residents of Germany. The Germans are widely known for their punctuality, so any inaccuracies can greatly affect your reputation in their eyes. Accordingly, with any, even friendly, interaction, you need to clearly know the time of the meeting.
There is only one time zone throughout Germany. And in Berlin, located in the east of the country, and in Cologne, located in the west. But even despite the large distance of 480 km in a straight line between these cities, which corresponds to six hours by car, the difference in sunrise is only about 20 minutes.
Greenwich Mean Time
A time zone is a certain territory, which includes, as a rule, several states in which a specific official time is set in accordance with international agreements.
GMT (not to be confused with London!) Is used as universal, universal. For him there is no division into winter and summer periods, it is constant. The main (winter) time zone of Germany is UTC + 01: 00, that is, an hour earlier than on the territory of the prime meridian, since this country is located to the east. This means that at exactly 10 hours GMT in Germany will be already 11:00. In summer, the difference is greater: the time will be UTC + 02: 00, that is, 2 hours earlier.
In the time zone of Germany are, for example, such European countries as Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Hungary, Gibraltar, Denmark, Italy, France, Czech Republic, Sweden and so on. As well as African Algeria, Gabon, Cameroon, Republic of the Congo, Namibia, Nigeria and others.
Daylight saving time
It is also important to remember the seasonal time change in Germany. What time zone the country is in depends on the period of the year.
Daylight saving time starts at 2:00 a.m. on the last Sunday of March. 03/25/2018 residents of the country will set the clock one hour ahead. For the winter (official) time, the transfer is carried out at 3:00 until noon on the last Sunday of October. 10/28/2018 in Germany, the arrows will move an hour ago.
Such actions are justified by saving electricity in the daytime. Daylight saving time practice is widespread in almost all countries of Europe and North America, but rarely used in South America, Africa and Australia.
