AKST(Alaska Standard Time)
Alaska Standard Time (AKST) is the standard time of almost all of Alaska, nine hours behind UTC.
- UTC offset
- UTC−09:00
- Abbreviation
- AKST
- Full name
- Alaska Standard Time
- Military letter
- Victor (V)
- Regions
- Alaska (United States)
- IANA zones
- America/Anchorage, America/Juneau, America/Nome
- Converter model
- Fixed offset.
What AKST means
AKST covers the great majority of Alaska, from the southeast panhandle through Anchorage and Fairbanks out to most of the Aleutian chain.
- A single offset spans an enormous east–west distance, so solar noon in Alaska can fall well away from clock noon.
- The far western Aleutians keep the Hawaii-Aleutian offset instead of AKST.
Cities on this offset
These cities keep UTC−09:00 as their standard offset:
- Anchorage
- Juneau
- Fairbanks
- Nome
History
Alaska used four separate time zones until 1983, when nearly the whole state was consolidated onto a single offset to simplify commerce with the contiguous United States.