Time in Spain

Spain has two time zones. Spain mainly uses CET (UTC+01:00) in Peninsular Spain, Ceuta, Melilla and the plazas de soberanía. In the Canary Islands, the time zone is WET (UTC±00:00).

Spain used GMT (UTC±00:00) before the Second World War (except for the Canary Islands which used UTC−01:00 before this date). However, the time zone was changed to Central European Time in 1940 and has remained so since then, meaning that Spain does not use its "natural" time zone under the coordinated time zone system. Some observers believe that this time zone shift plays a role in the country's relatively unusual daily schedule (late meals and sleep times).^[1]