South African Standard Time (SAST) is the time zone used by South Africa, Eswatini, and Lesotho. The time zone is two hours ahead of UTC (UTC+02:00) and corresponds to Central African Time. In neither time zone is daylight saving time observed. In this time zone, solar noon occurs at 30° E in SAST, putting Pietermaritzburg at the right solar noon location, with Johannesburg and Pretoria slightly west at 28° E and Durban slightly east at 31° E. As a result, the majority of South Africa’s population experiences true solar noon at around 12:00 p.m. daily.
However, the western Northern Cape and Western Cape differ. Because of its location in real UTC+01:00 but nevertheless being in South African Standard Time, all terrain west of 22°30′ E essentially enjoys year-round daylight saving time. In comparison to the rest of the country, sunrise and sunset are thus relatively late in Cape Town.
The South African National Time Standard, often known as the ‘SA Time’ Master Clock, is kept in the Time and Frequency Laboratory of the National Metrology Institute of South Africa (NMISA) in Pretoria and is made available to the public via an NTP Internet Time service.
South Africa observed GMT+03:00 (UTC+03:00) daylight saving time from 20 September 1942 to 21 March 1943 and 19 September 1943 to 19 March 1944.
South African Standard Time is specified in South African National Government Gazette No. 40125 on 8 July 2016 as “Coordinated Universal Time plus two hours” (UTC+02:00).
Is South Africa GMT or EST?
South African Standard Time (SAST) is the time zone used by South Africa, Eswatini, and Lesotho. The time zone is two hours ahead of UTC (UTC+02:00) and corresponds to Central African Time.
Why is South Africa divided into two time zones?
Surprisingly, South Africa was previously separated by two time zones for a brief period of time. With the implementation of time zones in 1892, the country was divided into two time zones until 1903, when it merged to observe one time zone.
