Skip to content

Time Zone Search

Jump to bottom
RealEarthling edited this page Oct 31, 2026 · 3 revisions

Time Zone Search

Epoch has its own time zone search. You use it whenever you add a value that depends on a time zone and choose Named time zone. This page describes what you can search for, how the results are found and ordered, and why some results may surprise you.

Where to find it

  1. Open a tab in edit mode (pencil icon) and tap +.
  2. Pick a value type with the globe icon (these depend on a time zone, e. g. Time, Date, Day second). Values such as Unix time or GMST have no zone.
  3. Choose Named time zone. (The two other choices are Local (system timezone) and UTC.)
  4. Type in the search field and tap a result.

The title shows the number of matches, e. g. Select timezone (3). An empty search field lists all zones.

What you can search for

Search by Examples Finds
City Berlin, São Paulo, Wien the zone of that city, also if it shares the zone of another city (see below)
Country Germany, Deutschland, UK every zone used in that country
Zone name (IANA ID) Europe/Berlin, york, america/arg, Europe/Amsterdam, US/Eastern, Etc/GMT-5 zone IDs, anywhere in the ID; old and alternative IDs find the zone they now point to
Time zone name Central European Time, Mitteleuropäische Zeit, Korea Time the zones that use that name
Abbreviation CET, MEZ, BRST zones using it now or in the past
UTC offset +5:30, UTC-3, +5.5 zones with that offset

English and German names always work, whichever language the app is set to. Titles and country names in the results follow the app language.

Cities Epoch knows: the city names IANA uses in zone IDs (Berlin, Chicago, ...), capital cities, and a selection of very large cities (e. g. Mumbai, Delhi, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, New York City, Saint Petersburg). Other places (Munich, Hamburg) are not searchable by name: search the country or the capital instead and give the value your own label.

Note

Epoch also knows some names that are not on the ISO 3166 country list: de-facto states and disputed territories such as Kosovo, Transnistria, Somaliland, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Northern Cyprus, plus the informal Anywhere on Earth (AOE). Each leads to the zone whose clock is used there. Listing a name says nothing about its political status.

How matching works

  • Beginning of names, anywhere in the zone ID: City, country and time zone names are matched from their beginning (new z finds New Zealand). The IANA zone ID is matched anywhere (york finds America/New_York, kyo finds Asia/Tokyo).
  • Capital letters mean exact: A query written entirely in capitals must match a whole name or abbreviation exactly (UK, CET, AOE). Otherwise, case does not matter. Digits and signs count as capitals, which is why +5:30 works as an exact offset.
  • Spelling is forgiving:
    • accents and umlauts are optional (Asunción = Asuncion, São Paulo = Sao Paulo, Zürich = Zurich; ue for ü is not recognized)
    • ß = ss, apostrophes are ignored (Cote d'Ivoire)
    • Saint, St., St and Sankt are equivalent
    • hyphens and spaces are equivalent (Ho-Chi-Minh = Ho Chi Minh), commas and dots are ignored
    • & = and, island = islands, the word the is ignored

UTC offsets

An offset needs a sign. UTC in front is optional, spaces are ignored.

You type Means
+5, +05, UTC+5 UTC+05:00
+5:30, +05:30, +0530, +530 UTC+05:30
+5.5, +5,5 UTC+05:30
+8.75, +8,75 UTC+08:45
-3, UTC-3 UTC−03:00
-3.5 UTC−03:30
  • An offset matches a zone if either its standard time or its summer time has that offset. +2 finds Berlin all year round, not only during summer time.
  • Fragments work too, if you do not type a complete offset: +05: lists +05:00, +05:30 and +05:45, :45 lists all zones with a 45-minute offset, 5:30 finds +05:30. Single digits match very many zones.

Abbreviations

  • Type abbreviations exactly as written, in capitals: CET, CEST, EST, JST, ChST.
  • Besides current abbreviations, older and alternative ones are found: BRST, ART, ICT (names that IANA used before 2016), the North American short names ET, CT, MT, PT, and the German MEZ, MESZ, OEZ, OESZ, WEZ, WESZ.
  • Many abbreviations are ambiguous (CST, IST, BST, ...): all zones that use or used them are listed.
  • Numeric abbreviations such as -03 or +0530 work as offsets.

Note

Historic abbreviations stay searchable even after a zone gave up summer time: CEST still finds Tunis. Full names with summer time, however, only find zones that observe summer time today (see below).

Names of time zones

Kind Examples
Standard names Central European Time, Eastern Standard Time, Greenwich Mean Time, India Standard Time, Nepal Time
Summer time names Central European Summer Time, Eastern Daylight Time, British Summer Time
German names Mitteleuropäische Zeit, Mitteleuropäische Sommerzeit, Nepalesische Normalzeit
Country or city plus Time Korea Time, Japan Time, Berlin Time, Deutschland-Zeit, Deutschland-Sommerzeit
Windows names W. Europe Standard Time, Romance Standard Time (English only)

Variants of the same name are understood:

  • Standard Time can be left out (Nepal Time = Nepal Standard Time), Daylight Time, Daylight Saving(s) Time and Summer Time are interchangeable
  • Eastern = East, Western = West
  • German: -Normalzeit, -Standardzeit, -Normal-Zeit, -Winterzeit, -Sommerzeit and -Sommer-Zeit

Summer time names find only zones that observe summer time today. Central European Summer Time finds Berlin, but not Tunis, although Tunis once belonged to the same group.

Reading the results

Each row shows:

Berlin (Germany) 14:05
Europe/Berlin · CET/CEST UTC+01:00/UTC+02:00
  • Title: city and country of the zone. The country is the one IANA lists first for the zone (the country of the location itself).
  • Second line: the IANA zone ID, followed by the zone's abbreviations and offsets (standard time first, then summer time). If standard and summer time have the same offset, it is shown once. If the zone has no summer time, only one abbreviation and offset appear.
  • Reason for the match: if you searched by another name than the zone's own, the ID is replaced by a hint such as Same time zone as Amsterdam or Time zone also used in Germany.
  • Time on the right: the current time in that zone (real system time, not Time Shift).

Order of the results:

  1. zone ID and offset matches
  2. city names
  3. capitals and large cities
  4. country names
  5. everything else (time zone names, abbreviations)

Within a group, results are sorted alphabetically by city (in the app language). The Etc/GMT... zones are sorted by offset instead.

Results that may surprise you

A different city than the one you typed

IANA keeps one zone for all places whose clocks have agreed since 1970. Epoch lists such a zone once, under its main city. The row tells you why it matches.

You type You get Why
Amsterdam, Europe/Amsterdam, Luxembourg Brussels (Belgium) one clock history since 1970
Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen Berlin (Germany) same
Zagreb, Sarajevo, Ljubljana Belgrade (Serbia) same
Monaco Paris (France) same
Kuala Lumpur Singapore (Singapore) same
Nassau Toronto (Canada) same
Reykjavik, Accra, Dakar Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire) same: Iceland and large parts of West Africa share UTC+00:00 without summer time
Aruba, Antigua Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico) the whole Caribbean group

The clocks are identical, so the displayed time is correct. If you add a value for Amsterdam, it is labelled with the zone's city (Brussels). Rename it with the pencil icon in edit mode.

Countries bring more or other zones than expected

  • Germany finds Berlin and Zurich: IANA assigns the Swiss time zone to Büsingen, a German exclave.
  • Denmark, Norway and Sweden find the Berlin zone, Bahamas finds Toronto, Iceland finds Abidjan: same reason as above.
  • Large countries (United States, Russia, Brazil, Canada, Australia, Argentina, Mexico, Indonesia, Kazakhstan) have many zones. IANA keeps separate zones where clocks differed after 1970, even inside a US state (e. g. several Indiana zones).

Abbreviations are not what you expect

  • São Paulo shows -03, not BRT. IANA removed made-up abbreviations in 2016 for places where none is in established use. Searching for BRT still works.
  • Lord Howe shows +1030/+11.
  • The German forms (MEZ, ...) are searchable always, but only the six forms listed above are displayed in German.

Zones without a place

  • Etc/UTC is the same as the UTC choice.
  • GMT+5 and GMT-5 find the IANA zones Etc/GMT+5 and Etc/GMT-5, whose sign is inverted: Etc/GMT+5 is five hours behind UTC (UTC−05:00). The row shows the real offset. For UTC+05:00 use UTC+5 or +5. Type etc/gmt to list all of them.
  • CST6CDT, EST5EDT, MST7MDT, PST8PDT are named after their rules, not a place.
  • Factory is IANA's placeholder zone for "no zone configured" (offset 0).

Offsets and the current rules

Offsets, abbreviations and summer time status are derived from the rules in effect around today (the next 13 months or so). A zone that abolished summer time is shown without it, and one that is about to is shown with it until the last change has happened.

Good to know

  • To save a place that is not in the search, add the closest zone and give the value your own label (pencil icon in edit mode).
  • The zone you pick is stored by its IANA ID (e. g. Europe/Brussels). Config files can use any IANA ID, including old aliases (e. g. Europe/Kiev, Asia/Calcutta), they behave like their modern counterparts. See Configuration Files.
  • The same value type in the same zone can only be added once, unless one of them is pinned to standard or summer time.
  • Zone data comes with the app, so the results can differ from your phone's, especially on older Android versions. See the build info (long press on the title).

Clone this wiki locally