Time in Finland

Time in Finland
The Helsinki University Observatory, where Finland's local mean time was measured
Time zone	Eastern European Time
Initials	EET
UTC offset	UTC+02:00
Standard meridian	30th meridian east
Time notation	24-hour clock
Adopted	30 April 1921
Daylight saving time
Name	Eastern European Summer Time
Initials	EEST
UTC offset	UTC+03:00
Start	03:00 EET on the last Sunday in March
End	04:00 EET on the last Sunday in October
In use since	1981 (current alignment)
tz database
Europe/Helsinki Europe/Mariehamn

Finland uses Eastern European Time^[a] (EET) during the winter as standard time and Eastern European Summer Time^[b] (EEST) during the summer as daylight saving time. EET is two hours ahead of coordinated universal time (UTC+02:00) and EEST is three hours ahead of coordinated universal time (UTC+03:00). Finland adopted EET on 30 April 1921, and has observed daylight saving time in its current alignment since 1981 by advancing the clock forward one hour at 03:00 EET on the last Sunday in March and back at 04:00 EET on the last Sunday in October, doing so an hour earlier for the first two years.

Before the 19th century, each locality followed its own solar time, which meant the time between the western and easternmost localities of Finland differed by thirty minutes. In the 19th century, a single time zone across Finland was needed to coordinate scheduling for the newly invented railway and telegraph. In 1862, the mean time 1:39:49.2 ahead of UT was adopted for the railway. Two separate, unsuccessful proposals for a standard time zone were made by the Diet of Finland in 1888 and 1897, when Finland was an autonomous duchy of the Russian Empire. On 30 April 1921, the newly independent government officially adopted the time zone UTC+02:00, known as Eastern European Time. Daylight saving time was first attempted in 1942, but abandoned as not useful. It was introduced again in 1981, so that Finland's time zone could always be aligned with neighbouring countries. In 2017, the Finnish parliament voted in favour of proposals calling on the European Union to consider abolishing daylight saving time.

Finland's time zone is maintained by the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and the Centre for Metrology and Accreditation. Using atomic clocks, they make sure the official timekeeping devices in Finland do not fall behind. Finland's high latitude means that in summer the nights are short, and daylight saving time has no impact on the population. Northernmost Finland is within the Arctic circle and has a polar night lasting 51 days and a polar day lasting 73 days, whilst the southernmost localities of Finland experience less than six hours of daylight in winter and an average of 20 hours of daylight in summer. The country uses the 24 hour clock notation.
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