Asia/Shanghai time zone
8:14PMCST
CSTUTC+8+13 h vs New York (you)
No transitions: Asia/Shanghai stays on CST (UTC+8).
About Asia/Shanghai
Asia/Shanghai is the IANA time zone for Beijing Time in China. It currently keeps China Standard Time (CST, UTC+8) all year.
Its principal location is Shanghai at 31.23° N, 121.47° E.
Abbreviations in use: CST. Offset page: UTC+8.
Rule for future years (POSIX TZ string)
CST-8
The standard time is called CST and is UTC+8. POSIX writes the offset with the opposite sign (west of Greenwich is positive), which is why the string says "-8". 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 Asia/Shanghai since 1970
The record starts with local mean time (UTC+8:06), which ended on January 1, 1901. The first daylight saving time in the record is in 1919.
| Years | Clocks | Abbreviations |
|---|---|---|
| 1970–1985 | UTC+8 all year | CST |
| 1986–1991 | UTC+8 in winter, UTC+9 in summer | CST, CDT |
| 1992 onward | UTC+8 all year | CST |
Before 1970
17 offset changes before 1970 in the record:
- Tuesday, January 1, 1901: UTC+8:06 → UTC+8 (CST)
- Sunday, April 13, 1919: UTC+8 → UTC+9 (CDT), daylight saving time
- Wednesday, October 1, 1919: UTC+9 → UTC+8 (CST)
- Saturday, June 1, 1940: UTC+8 → UTC+9 (CDT), daylight saving time
- Sunday, October 13, 1940: UTC+9 → UTC+8 (CST)
- Saturday, March 15, 1941: UTC+8 → UTC+9 (CDT), daylight saving time
- Sunday, November 2, 1941: UTC+9 → UTC+8 (CST)
- Saturday, January 31, 1942: UTC+8 → UTC+9 (CDT), daylight saving time
- Sunday, September 2, 1945: UTC+9 → UTC+8 (CST)
- Wednesday, May 15, 1946: UTC+8 → UTC+9 (CDT), daylight saving time
- Tuesday, October 1, 1946: UTC+9 → UTC+8 (CST)
- Tuesday, April 15, 1947: UTC+8 → UTC+9 (CDT), daylight saving time
- Saturday, November 1, 1947: UTC+9 → UTC+8 (CST)
- Saturday, May 1, 1948: UTC+8 → UTC+9 (CDT), daylight saving time
- Friday, October 1, 1948: UTC+9 → UTC+8 (CST)
- Sunday, May 1, 1949: UTC+8 → UTC+9 (CDT), daylight saving time
- Saturday, May 28, 1949: UTC+9 → UTC+8 (CST)
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 Asia/Shanghai in tzdata. Their pages redirect here: Asia/Chongqing, Asia/Chungking, Asia/Harbin, PRC.
Other zones that keep exactly the same time under the current rules (but have a different history): Antarctica/Casey, Asia/Hong_Kong, Asia/Irkutsk, Asia/Kuching, Asia/Macau, Asia/Makassar, Asia/Manila, Asia/Singapore, Asia/Taipei, Asia/Ulaanbaatar, Australia/Perth.
Places on Asia/Shanghai
Convert Shanghai time
Using Asia/Shanghai 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: 'Asia/Shanghai' })
# Python 3.9+
from zoneinfo import ZoneInfo
from datetime import datetime
datetime.now(ZoneInfo('Asia/Shanghai'))
// Java
java.time.ZonedDateTime.now(java.time.ZoneId.of("Asia/Shanghai"))
// Go
loc, _ := time.LoadLocation("Asia/Shanghai")
time.Now().In(loc)
-- PostgreSQL
SELECT now() AT TIME ZONE 'Asia/Shanghai';
# Shell
TZ='Asia/Shanghai' 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.