Time zone
Central European Time
UTC offset
UTC+1 / UTC+2
Daylight saving
Yes — March & October
Country
Spain 🇪🇸
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Fun facts about London time 🕐
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Spain is geographically aligned with the UK and Portugal — it should be on GMT — but Franco aligned it with Nazi Germany's timezone in 1940. Spain has been an hour 'wrong' ever since.
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Because Spain's clocks run an hour ahead, the sun doesn't set until 10 PM in summer. This is the real reason Spaniards eat dinner at 10 PM — the sun is genuinely still up.
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The Spanish siesta exists partly because lunch happens at 3 PM and dinner at 10 PM. The day is just very long. Spain's schedule is a direct consequence of the wrong timezone.
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Madrid's golden hour in summer arrives so late that photographers often work past 9 PM. The 'magic hour' in Madrid is basically the magic 9 PM.
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Spanish prime time TV starts at 10:30 PM — later than almost anywhere else on Earth. Spanish TV schedules are completely incomprehensible to northern Europeans.
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Spain controls the Canary Islands off the African coast, which use GMT — the 'correct' solar time that mainland Spain abandoned in 1940. Same country, different clock.
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London has two time zones per year — GMT in winter and BST in summer. The city has been confusing international call schedulers since 1847.
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Railway companies forced Britain to standardize to London time in 1847. Trains: accidentally inventors of time zones.
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British pubs used to have strict closing times set by the government during WWI to keep factory workers sober. Time literally controlled drinking.
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When London observes GMT, it shares its timezone with Iceland, Ghana, Senegal and Portugal. Quite the eclectic group.
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The speaking clock — a phone service that tells you the time — was invented in Madrid in 1936. People called it so much it still exists today. Just dial 123.
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