Europe/Astrakhan time zone
4:56PMUTC+4
UTC+4UTC+4+9 h vs New York (you)
No transitions: Europe/Astrakhan stays on UTC+4.
About Europe/Astrakhan
Europe/Astrakhan is the IANA time zone for MSK+01: Astrakhan in Russia. It currently keeps UTC+4 all year.
Its principal location is Astrakhan at 46.35° N, 48.05° E.
Rule for future years (POSIX TZ string)
<+04>-4
The standard time is called “+04” (a numeric abbreviation) and is UTC+4. POSIX writes the offset with the opposite sign (west of Greenwich is positive), which is why the string says "-4". 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 Europe/Astrakhan since 1970
The record starts with local mean time (UTC+3:12), which ended on April 30, 1924. The first daylight saving time in the record is in 1981.
| Years | Clocks | Abbreviations |
|---|---|---|
| 1970–1980 | UTC+4 all year | — |
| 1981–1988 | UTC+4 in winter, UTC+5 in summer | — |
| 1989 | UTC+4 until September 24, then UTC+3 | — |
| 1990 | UTC+3 in winter, UTC+4 in summer | — |
| 1991 | UTC+3 until March 31, then UTC+4 | — |
| 1992 | UTC+4 until September 27, then UTC+3 | — |
| 1993–2010 | UTC+3 in winter, UTC+4 in summer | — |
| 2011 | UTC+3 until March 27, then UTC+4 | — |
| 2012–2013 | UTC+4 all year | — |
| 2014 | UTC+4 until October 26, then UTC+3 | — |
| 2015 | UTC+3 all year | — |
| 2016 | UTC+3 until March 27, then UTC+4 | — |
| 2017 onward | UTC+4 all year | — |
Before 1970
2 offset changes before 1970 in the record:
- Wednesday, April 30, 1924: UTC+3:12 → UTC+3
- Saturday, June 21, 1930: UTC+3 → UTC+4
Changes of the winter (standard) offset: Sunday, September 24, 1989, UTC+4 → UTC+3; Sunday, March 27, 2011, UTC+3 → UTC+4; Sunday, October 26, 2014, UTC+4 → UTC+3; Sunday, March 27, 2016, UTC+3 → UTC+4.
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
Other zones that keep exactly the same time under the current rules (but have a different history): Asia/Baku, Asia/Dubai, Asia/Tbilisi, Asia/Yerevan, Europe/Samara, Europe/Saratov, Europe/Ulyanovsk, Indian/Mauritius.
Convert Astrakhan time
Using Europe/Astrakhan 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: 'Europe/Astrakhan' })
# Python 3.9+
from zoneinfo import ZoneInfo
from datetime import datetime
datetime.now(ZoneInfo('Europe/Astrakhan'))
// Java
java.time.ZonedDateTime.now(java.time.ZoneId.of("Europe/Astrakhan"))
// Go
loc, _ := time.LoadLocation("Europe/Astrakhan")
time.Now().In(loc)
-- PostgreSQL
SELECT now() AT TIME ZONE 'Europe/Astrakhan';
# Shell
TZ='Europe/Astrakhan' 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.