The Eastern Time Zone (‘ET) is a time zone used in the seventeen eastern states of the United States, parts of eastern Canada and the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico, Panama in Central America, and the islands of the Caribbean.
UTC Difference
| EST UTC | 5:00 |
| EDT UTC | 4:00 |
Time in EST
Time in EDT
Coordinated Universal Time
Observation
Regions that use Eastern Standard Time (EST) are five hours behind UTC.
Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), when using Daylight Saving Time in the spring and summer, is four hours behind UTC.
History of Eastern Time Zone Circle
In mid-1884 a Conference named ‘International Prime Meridian Conference” was called in Washington D.C. to standardize the time and select the prime meridian.
The conference selected the longitude of Greenwich, England as zero degrees longitude and observed the 24 time zones based on the prime meridian.
After some time, most U.S. states began to adhere to the Pacific, Mountain, Central, and Eastern time zones by 1895.
Time Zones in the US
Presently there are 9 time zones in the US. Howland Island and Baker Island the different time zone and including them will bring a total of 11 time zones in the US.
Countries that use the Eastern time zone
Below are some states that widely use the Eastern time zone –
Canada
The following Canadian provinces and territories are part of the Eastern Time Circle.
- Ontario
- Quebec
- Nunavut
United States of America
The District of Colombia and seventeen other states are located in the Eastern Time Zone.
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- Georgia
- New jersey
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- New Hampshire
- Maine
- New York
- North Carolina
- Ohio
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- Vermont
- Virginia
- Western Virginia
Six states are divided into Central and Eastern time zones.
- Alabama
- Florida
- Indiana
- Kentucky
- Michigan
- Tennessee
Due to the presence of large areas and politically and economically important cities such as the capital Washington DC and New York, this time is widely used to describe any event in America.
Mexico
It is the easternmost state of Mexico that used Eastern Standard Time for almost 17 years (1982 to 1998). Since then, after using Middle Standard Time, it started using it again on 1 February 2015.
Central America
Panama in Central America also uses Eastern Standard Time UTC – 05:00 throughout the year.
Caribbean Archipelago
The Bahamas, the Cayman Islands and Haiti officially use Eastern Standard Time in winter and Eastern Daylight Saving Time in summer. Cuba often does the same. The Turks and Caicos Islands also previously used the same time zone, but in 2015 they adopted the Atlantic time zone.
