Localize date and time formats using the visitor's time zone
Show every date and time on a page in the visitor's own local time and format, rather than a fixed server time zone that reads correctly to almost nobody.
Tag
#timezone
Historical time zone changes and why they still matter
A timestamp from years ago needs the time zone rule that was actually in effect back then, not today's rule. Getting this wrong quietly corrupts historical data.
Show the right business hours based on visitor location
Display "open now" or "closed" correctly for a global audience by resolving the visitor's local time zone before comparing it against your posted hours.
What happens to geocoding near the poles
Near the poles, longitude lines converge to a single point and time zones become almost meaningless. Location software built around ordinary assumptions tends to behave strangely there.
Build a time zone picker that defaults to the visitor's zone
Pre-select a visitor's own time zone in a settings form using their IP address, instead of asking them to search for it themselves.
The International Date Line and the requests that cross it
Two points a short distance apart can be on different calendar days entirely, purely because of where the International Date Line happens to run between them.
Leap seconds, UTC, and why they rarely matter to you
Every so often, an extra second gets inserted into UTC to keep it aligned with the Earth's actual rotation. Almost no application needs to think about this directly.
Faster time zone lookups after rebuilding our lookup table
The timezone lookup table behind every request has been rebuilt for speed, with no change to the request shape or response fields.
Moving off a Bing Maps time zone integration
Bing's time zone data is often tied to the same account as its geocoding calls. Here is how to separate and migrate that one piece.
Add a local-time clock widget to a support dashboard
Show each customer's local time right next to their support ticket, so an agent knows whether it is a reasonable hour to pick up the phone.
Moving off a Google Maps Platform time zone integration
A Google time zone lookup is often bundled with a bigger Maps Platform account. Here is how to move just that piece.
Countries that have changed their time zone rules
A country's UTC offset is not permanent. Governments periodically redraw zone boundaries, adjust offsets, or add and drop daylight saving, and software has to keep up.
Daylight saving transitions and the requests that break around them
Twice a year, a range of local times either does not exist or exists twice. Software that assumes every clock time is unambiguous will fail exactly then.
Half-hour and 45-minute time zones, explained
Not every time zone sits on a clean hour boundary. Several countries use 30 or 45 minute offsets, and code that assumes whole hours will break on them.
Convert a UTC timestamp to local time for your users
Show timestamps in a visitor's local time instead of raw UTC, using their coordinates and a single time zone lookup with the right timestamp.
Time zone data: how the rules actually get maintained
Time zone offsets are not fixed physical facts, they are legal decisions that governments change. Here is how that gets tracked and kept current.
Find the time zone for any latitude and longitude
Turn any pair of coordinates into a time zone name, current UTC offset, and abbreviation with one API call, ready for your own date library.