Africa/Lagos time zone
2:43PMWAT
WATUTC+1+6 h vs New York (you)
No transitions: Africa/Lagos stays on WAT (UTC+1).
About Africa/Lagos
Africa/Lagos is the IANA time zone for West Africa Time in Nigeria, Angola, Benin, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Niger. It currently keeps West Africa Time (WAT, UTC+1) all year.
The zone serves 10 countries or territories because their clocks have agreed since 1970; tzdata lists them together in zone1970.tab. That says nothing about borders or sovereignty, as the file’s header points out.
Its principal location is Lagos at 6.45° N, 3.40° E.
Abbreviations in use: WAT. Offset page: UTC+1.
Rule for future years (POSIX TZ string)
WAT-1
The standard time is called WAT and is UTC+1. POSIX writes the offset with the opposite sign (west of Greenwich is positive), which is why the string says "-1". There is no daylight saving rule: the zone stays on this offset for every year after the end of its explicit transitions. Software that has no full tzdata copy, such as many embedded devices, can use this string directly as the TZ environment variable.
History of Africa/Lagos since 1970
The record starts with local mean time (UTC+0:14), which ended on July 1, 1905. The record shows no daylight saving time at any point.
| Years | Clocks | Abbreviations |
|---|---|---|
| 1970 onward | UTC+1 all year | WAT |
Before 1970
4 offset changes before 1970 in the record:
- Saturday, July 1, 1905: UTC+0:14 → UTC+0 (GMT)
- Wednesday, July 1, 1908: UTC+0 → UTC+0:14
- Thursday, January 1, 1914: UTC+0:14 → UTC+0:30
- Monday, September 1, 1919: UTC+0:30 → UTC+1 (WAT)
tzdata commits to accuracy from 1970 for every zone (zone1970.tab); earlier entries are historical research and may be incomplete.
Aliases and zones with the same clock
These older or country-specific IDs are links to Africa/Lagos in tzdata. Their pages redirect here: Africa/Bangui, Africa/Brazzaville, Africa/Douala, Africa/Kinshasa, Africa/Libreville, Africa/Luanda, Africa/Malabo, Africa/Niamey, Africa/Porto-Novo.
Other zones that keep exactly the same time under the current rules (but have a different history): Africa/Algiers, Africa/Ndjamena, Africa/Tunis.
Places on Africa/Lagos
- KinshasaCD
- LagosNG
- KanoNG
- IbadanNG
- LuandaAO
- AbujaNG
- Port HarcourtNG
- BrazzavilleCG
- KadunaNG
- Benin CityNG
- OnitshaNG
- DoualaCM
- NiameyNE
- YaoundéCM
- AbaNG
- MaiduguriNG
- IlorinNG
- SokotoNG
- JosNG
- Pointe-NoireCG
- LibrevilleGA
- BanguiCF
- Porto-NovoBJ
- Ciudad de la PazGQ
Convert Lagos time
Using Africa/Lagos in code
Every major platform reads the same IANA ID. Store instants in UTC and convert with the ID at display time; never store a fixed offset for a place that has daylight saving time.
// JavaScript
new Date().toLocaleString('en-US', { timeZone: 'Africa/Lagos' })
# Python 3.9+
from zoneinfo import ZoneInfo
from datetime import datetime
datetime.now(ZoneInfo('Africa/Lagos'))
// Java
java.time.ZonedDateTime.now(java.time.ZoneId.of("Africa/Lagos"))
// Go
loc, _ := time.LoadLocation("Africa/Lagos")
time.Now().In(loc)
-- PostgreSQL
SELECT now() AT TIME ZONE 'Africa/Lagos';
# Shell
TZ='Africa/Lagos' datePlatforms ship their own copy of tzdata and update it on their own schedule. After a rule change, outputs can differ until the platform updates; this page uses tzdata 2026f.