CST(China Standard Time)
China Standard Time (CST) is the single national time of mainland China, eight hours ahead of UTC.
- UTC offset
- UTC+08:00
- Abbreviation
- CST
- Full name
- China Standard Time
- Military letter
- Hotel (H)
- Regions
- Mainland China
- IANA zones
- Asia/Shanghai, Asia/Macau
- Converter model
- Fixed offset.
What CST means
CST is the civil time of the entire People's Republic of China, from the eastern seaboard to the far west, and it governs all domestic transport and broadcasting.
- Because one offset covers roughly sixty degrees of longitude, clock time in western China departs sharply from solar time.
- Hong Kong and Macau share the offset but are usually written as HKT and MOT respectively.
Cities on this offset
These cities keep UTC+08:00 as their standard offset:
- Beijing
- Shanghai
- Guangzhou
- Shenzhen
- Chongqing
Other meanings of CST
CST is used for more than one time zone. This page describes China Standard Time; the other meanings have their own pages and their own offsets:
- CST — Central Standard Time (UTC−06:00)
- CST — Cuba Standard Time (UTC−05:00)
Zones with the same offset
- SGT — Singapore Time (UTC+08:00)
History
China used five zones before 1949 and afterwards unified the country on a single offset based on the meridian near Beijing.