Time in Africa

Before the wide adoption of standard time zones, local mean time, which is a solar time that corrects the variations of local apparent time by forming a uniform time scale at a specific longitude,^[8] such as railway time for train timetables and telegraphic time for telegraphy, was widely used.^[7] Due to the large size of the British company rule in Rhodesia, it meant Rhodesia observed three standards of time: UTC+01:30, +2:15 and +2:30; this was problematic for the railway system, so on 1 August 1899 the standard time zones UTC+02:30 was adopted nationwide,^[10] consequently resulting in this being the first standard time in Africa. This would soon be followed by Egypt, which adopted standard time on 1 October 1900;^[21][22] Nigeria adopted standard time on 1 July 1905,^[23] Seychelles in 1906,^[24] Mauritius on 1 January 1907,^[21] Togo in 1907,^[12] Algeria on 11 March 1911^[9] and Tunisia on 12 April 1911.^[21] Most Portuguese territories (including Cape Verde and Mozambique) adopted standard time on 26 May 1911,^[11] followed by most remaining French and British territories on 1 July 1911 and 1 January 1912.^[21][25] The Gambia adopted standard time in 1918.^[26] Liberia was the last country in Africa to adopt a standard offset, doing so on 7 January 1972.^[13] The latest time change was South Sudan, which switched from UTC+3 to +2 on 1 February 2021.^[27]

As Africa straddles the equator and tropics, there is little change in daylight hours throughout the year^[4] and as such daylight saving time (DST) is currently observed in only one country, Egypt, however it was also previously observed in several other countries: the countries that formerly observed DST are South Africa, which last observed it in 1944,^[28] Cape Verde in 1945,^[29] Madagascar in 1954,^[29] Ghana in 1956,^[30] Sierra Leone in 1962,^[31] Algeria and Chad in 1980,^[9] Sudan in 1985,^[9] Tunisia in 2008,^[32] Mauritius in 2009,^[29] Libya in 2012,^[33][34] and Namibia in 2017.^[35] Since 2019,^[36] Morocco has observed UTC+01:00 year round except during the month of Ramadan, when it switches to UTC±00:00 as to not interfere with the month's fasting (sawm).^[37][38] Also since 2023, Egypt has observed DST starting on last Friday of April and ending on the last Thursday of October.^[39]

• African time–a perceived cultural tendency in parts of Africa and the Caribbean toward a more relaxed attitude to time
• Daylight saving time in Africa
• Date and time notation in Africa
• Lists of time zones
• Geography of Africa