Central European Summer Time (CEST) is one of the names of UTC+2 time zone, 2 hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time. It is used as a summer daylight saving time in most European and some North African countries. During the winter, Central European Time (UTC+1) is used.

Central European Summer Time used to be also known under other names, such as Middle European Summer Time (MEST), Central European Daylight Saving Time (CEDT) or 'Bravo time', after the 2nd letter of the phonetic alphabet. Note that CEST is commonly referred to as CET.

Since 1996 European Summer Time has been observed from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October; previously the rules were not uniform across the European Union.[1]

[edit] Usage

The following countries and territories use Central European Summer Time during the summer, between 1:00 UTC on the last Sunday of March and 1:00 on the last Sunday of October.

CEST was used also in years 1993–1995 in Portugal and 1998–1999 in Lithuania.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Joseph Myers (2009-07-17). "History of legal time in Britain". http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~jsm28/british-time/. Retrieved 2009-10-11.