1200 military time
1200 = 12:00 PM
1200 is noon. With a colon it is 12:00.
Convert another time
How to read 1200
1200 is in the noon hour, 1200 to 1259, which takes PM without subtracting anything: 1200 is noon exactly.
Hour 12 stays 12, and it is PM. This is the one afternoon hour you do not subtract from.
Noon is the case the 24-hour clock settles. NIST calls “12 p.m.” ambiguous, since noon is neither before nor after noon; 1200 can only mean midday.
1200 is the exact middle of the day: 12 hours after midnight and 12 hours before the next one.
How to say it
Pilots and air traffic controllers say each digit: “one two zero zero”. Off the radio, people usually read 1200 as two numbers.
Counting hours to and from 1200
Start and end times on a timesheet come down to this subtraction. The decimal column is the form many payroll systems want; the minutes to decimal chart covers every minute.
| Start | Length | Decimal |
|---|---|---|
| 0600 | 6 h | 6.00 |
| 0700 | 5 h | 5.00 |
| 0800 | 4 h | 4.00 |
| 0900 | 3 h | 3.00 |
| Add | Military | 12-hour |
|---|---|---|
| 1 h | 1300 | 1:00 PM |
| 2 h | 1400 | 2:00 PM |
| 4 h | 1600 | 4:00 PM |
| 8 h | 2000 | 8:00 PM |
| 10 h | 2200 | 10:00 PM |
| 12 h | 0000 | 12:00 AM (next day) |
1200Z: the same moment in other time zones
Written 1200Z, the time is in UTC, and the local clock depends on the zone and the season.
| Zone | Standard time | Summer time |
|---|---|---|
| US Eastern (New York) | 7:00 AM UTC−5 | 8:00 AM UTC−4 |
| US Central (Chicago) | 6:00 AM UTC−6 | 7:00 AM UTC−5 |
| US Mountain (Denver) | 5:00 AM UTC−7 | 6:00 AM UTC−6 |
| US Pacific (Los Angeles) | 4:00 AM UTC−8 | 5:00 AM UTC−7 |
| Alaska (Anchorage) | 3:00 AM UTC−9 | 4:00 AM UTC−8 |
| Hawaii (Honolulu) | 2:00 AM UTC−10 | no change |
| UK (London) | 12:00 PM UTC+0 | 1:00 PM UTC+1 |
| Central Europe (Berlin) | 1:00 PM UTC+1 | 2:00 PM UTC+2 |
| India | 5:30 PM UTC+5:30 | no change |
| Japan and South Korea | 9:00 PM UTC+9 | no change |
| Australia East (Sydney) | 10:00 PM UTC+10 | 11:00 PM UTC+11 |
For a particular date and city, use the time zone converter, which applies the exact daylight saving dates.
Nearby military times
The full chart is on the military time page.