New Time Zone for North Korea
North Korea uses the same time as South Korea and Japan, UTC+9. Now it is to create its own time zone to mark its liberation from Japan at the end of World War II, says the state news agency KCNA.[1]
KCNA said that "wicked Japanese imperialists" had "deprived Korea of even its standard time" by changing its clocks during their rule.[1]
Pyongyang Time will be UTC+8:30, 30 minutes behind the old time, from 15 August 2015. South Korea and Japan will stay on UTC+9.[1][2]
The whole Korean peninsula, then one country, used UTC+8:30 before Japanese rule. Under Japanese rule, which began in 1910, Korea's clocks were moved to Tokyo time, UTC+9.[1][2]
Update, 26 October 2026: North Korea went back to UTC+9 after the inter-Korean summit of April 2018: at 23:30 on 4 May 2018, its clocks went forward 30 minutes, to midnight.[3] Since then it has had the same time as South Korea and Japan again.[2]
References
- North Korea's new time zone to break from 'imperialism', BBC News, 7 August 2015.
- Time zone database: Asia, Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), accessed 26 October 2026.
- North Korea changes its time zone to match South, BBC News, 4 May 2018.
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