Calendars and time
Coordinated Universal Time
Direct answer
Coordinated Universal Time: Coordinated Universal Time, or UTC, is the internationally agreed standard for civil world time, realized with atomic clocks and coordinated with Earth rotation.
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At a glance
- Found in
- Calendars & Timekeeping
- Related
- Calendar, Solar Calendar, Lunar Calendar, Lunisolar Calendar
Coordinated Universal Time is the international reference standard for world time.
A cycle or timeline schematic for comparing the named timekeeping concept.
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The story behind Coordinated Universal Time
UTC became the modern world-time standard by combining atomic timekeeping with occasional adjustments tied to Earth rotation.
How to read Coordinated Universal Time
UTC speaks to stored astronomical event times and convert to local civil time only at the display layer with an explicit zone.
Coordinated Universal Time in practice: an example
An event recorded as 03:00 UTC represents one instant even though local date and clock time differ around the world.
Where readings of Coordinated Universal Time go wrong
The usual misreading is to treat UTC as a geographic time zone or silently label a local timestamp as UTC.
Sources and editorial method
Research references used for this entry include:
- NIST: UTC(NIST) Time Scale - Official explanation of Coordinated Universal Time and the U.S. realization UTC(NIST).
- U.S. Naval Observatory: Universal Time - Official explanation of Universal Time and its relationship to Greenwich timekeeping.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Calendars & Timekeeping
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
Convert UTC to local time
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More in Calendars & Timekeeping
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Common questions
What is Coordinated Universal Time?
Coordinated Universal Time, or UTC, is the internationally agreed standard for civil world time, realized with atomic clocks and coordinated with Earth rotation.
What do people get wrong about Coordinated Universal Time?
The usual misreading is to treat UTC as a geographic time zone or silently label a local timestamp as UTC.
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