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🕐 Time Zones

World Clock

View the current local time in any city worldwide, including DST status.

This page explains how the world clock works, the data and formulas behind it, and how to interpret the result. The IANA database is the global source of truth for civil time. It records the political boundaries and DST rules for every region on Earth, and is embedded in every major operating system, programming language and calendar app. The tool is one of 329 free, open tools on JoseFitani for maps and geography. It runs in your browser with no sign-up needed. Use the search field or click the map to drop a pin - the tool uses the IANA time zone database via the browser's Intl.DateTimeFormat API and returns the result in seconds. Below you'll find a step-by-step guide, real use cases, the methodology, FAQs, and data sources.

Offset lookup: type an IANA time zone identifier (e.g. Asia/Kolkata, America/New_York) to see its current local time, UTC offset and DST status. This tool does not use a map.

Current local time
Friday, October 9, 2026 at 01:34:27 PM GMT+2

How to use this tool

1
Enter your input

Type your query, paste coordinates, or click on the map. The tool uses the IANA time zone database via the browser's Intl.DateTimeFormat API to process your input locally in the browser.

2
View the result

The result appears instantly with the map showing your location. You can adjust by clicking elsewhere or searching a new place.

3
Copy or share

Click Copy to save to clipboard, or Share to send a direct link with the exact inputs.

What people use this tool for

Stock market hours tracking

Investors follow openings and closes across exchanges without doing offset arithmetic in their heads. The clock shows each financial centre's local time with its UTC offset beside it. Spotting that Mumbai closes as New York opens shapes the trading day.

Example: A retail investor in Delhi keeps the clock on London, New York, and Tokyo to know when each market's session starts in IST.
Family calls across continents

Families split between countries stop guessing whether it is a decent hour to ring. Each saved city shows its current time and whether daylight saving is active. The DST flag matters most around the spring and autumn transitions.

Example: A student in Toronto checks Mumbai's time before calling home, avoiding the 3 am wake-up call she made last Diwali.
Live stream scheduling

Creators announce stream times that their audience can actually convert to local time. Listing the broadcast city on the clock lets viewers verify the hour themselves. Fewer missed streams follow because nobody trusted a rough mental conversion.

Example: A gaming streamer in Seoul posts '9 pm KST' and links the clock so European viewers confirm it is 1 pm their time.
Newsroom deadline coordination

Editors across bureaus align copy deadlines to a single reference while seeing each desk's local hour. The clock shows at a glance which bureau is heading home and which is just waking. That visibility prevents the classic mistake of setting a deadline after a desk has closed.

Example: A wire editor in London checks the Sydney and Washington clocks before fixing the overnight filing deadline.

How it's calculated

Uses the browser's Intl.DateTimeFormat API with the IANA time zone database.

The calculation runs in your browser - no data is sent to our servers. Map tiles come from OpenStreetMap (ODbL license), geocoding uses Nominatim (1 request/second limit), and elevation uses the Open-Elevation API backed by SRTM data. All are free, open services.

All calculations use the WGS84 datum (EPSG:4326), the same as GPS. For other datums (NAD27, NAD83, ETRS89), a separate conversion is needed. The difference is typically under 1 metre - negligible for most uses but important for survey-grade work.

The formulas match those in professional GIS software (QGIS, ArcGIS, Global Mapper), just in a browser-friendly form. For sub-metre accuracy, use professional software with ellipsoidal calculations. Results are shown in multiple units: km and miles for distance, km²/m²/hectares/acres for area, metres and feet for elevation. Conversion factors are exact (1 mile = 1.609344 km), so the only error source is input precision.

Related tools and resources

For more tools in this category, explore the related tools listed below. Each tool includes full documentation, examples and FAQs. Explore related tools in our Timezones category for complementary functionality. See the Tools index for all 329 tools, or read our blog for in-depth articles on geography and maps.

Frequently asked questions

Is DST accounted for?

Yes - automatically based on the IANA database.

How does the clock handle daylight saving time?

Each city's time is computed from its IANA time zone, which encodes every DST transition. When a city springs forward or falls back, the displayed time follows automatically. The DST indicator tells you whether the city is currently on summer time, so you can see why an offset changed since your last visit.

Is the time shown as accurate as my device clock?

The clock derives every city's time from your device's clock plus the zone offsets, so its accuracy is only as good as your device. A phone synced to network time is typically within a second. If your laptop's clock drifts, every city on the page drifts with it.

Can I switch between 12-hour and 24-hour formats?

Yes, the display offers both formats. The 24-hour format removes all am and pm ambiguity, which is why airlines, militaries, and hospitals prefer it. The 12-hour format suits casual checking with family and friends.

What does the UTC offset next to each city mean?

It shows how many hours and minutes the city's local time sits ahead of or behind Coordinated Universal Time right now. An offset of +5:30 means local time is five and a half hours ahead of UTC. The offset can change through the year in cities that observe daylight saving.

Why do some cities share the same time but different offsets?

That happens when one city observes daylight saving and the other does not, or when zones align only seasonally. The IANA zone behind each city keeps its own transition calendar. The offset column reveals these quiet differences that a plain clock face hides.

How many cities can I track at once?

Add as many as you need; the page is designed to hold a full watchlist of cities. Frequent travellers often keep home base, current location, and the next two destinations visible. Each city updates every second from the same device clock.

Does the world clock need the internet?

No, not after the page loads. Time-zone math and the ticking display run entirely in your browser using the Intl API. You only need connectivity to load the page itself; an offline flight still shows every city's correct local time.

What happens during the ambiguous DST fall-back hour?

When clocks fall back, one local hour occurs twice, and the browser's time-zone engine resolves it to a single instant per its rules. The displayed time stays consistent and keeps ticking forward normally. Scheduling anything inside that repeated hour is best done in UTC to avoid the ambiguity.

Data sources & methodology