Every spring, most Americans grumble as they set their clocks forward an hour. In Hawaii, nobody bothers. The islands keep the same time all year, which means that for much of the year they fall even further behind the mainland. So does Hawaii really have a time zone all its own?
Not quite. Hawaii sits in the Hawaii–Aleutian Time Zone, which it shares with the far western Aleutian Islands of Alaska. Both run 10 hours behind Coordinated Universal Time. But Hawaii skips daylight saving time while the Aleutians don't, so for much of the year Hawaii keeps a time of its own. The reason comes down to the tropical sun.
A Zone Shared With Alaska
The time zone is named for its two members: Hawaii and the part of Alaska's Aleutian Islands west of 169° 30′ west longitude. Clock time there is based on the mean solar time of the 150th meridian west of Greenwich.
During daylight saving time, the Alaskan section moves one hour ahead, while Hawaii stays put. French Polynesia and the Cook Islands keep the same time as Hawaii, but because the zone's name is an American term, they aren't counted as part of it.
Honolulu is the largest city in the zone. Other places on its clock include the tiny Alaskan communities of Adak and Atka, along with Johnston Atoll and Palmyra Atoll out in the Pacific.
Why Hawaii Skips Daylight Saving Time
The Uniform Time Act of 1966 set nationwide rules for states that observe daylight saving time, and it lets states opt out. Today, Hawaii and Arizona are the two states that do, though Arizona's Navajo Nation still changes its clocks.
Hawaii opted out of the Uniform Time Act's daylight saving rules in 1967 and has never observed DST under the act. The main reason is geography. Because Hawaii lies in the tropics, the length of daylight changes very little between winter and summer, so there's not much extra evening light to gain.
There's a sunrise problem, too. Most of the inhabited islands sit near the western edge of the time zone, and Oahu, Kauai, and Niihau are more than 7 degrees west of its central meridian. Moving the clocks forward would push sunrise to around 7 a.m. even in June. Until about 1946, in fact, Hawaiian time was based on longitude 157.5 degrees west, much closer to where most islanders actually live.
The Days of the Odd Half-Hour
Hawaii's clocks have a quirky history. Before 1896, the islands had no standard time at all. Hawaiian Standard Time began at noon on January 13, 1896, set at 10 hours and 30 minutes behind UTC.
That half-hour offset lasted about half a century. On June 8, 1947, a territorial law moved Hawaiian Standard Time 30 minutes ahead, to the even 10 hours used today.
Hawaii did flirt with daylight saving time. In 1933, the territorial legislature passed a DST law, then repealed it about three weeks later. And during World War II, from 1942 to 1945, the islands ran on Hawaiian War Time, an hour ahead, which amounted to year-round daylight saving time.
So Hawaii doesn't technically have a time zone to itself, but it certainly marches to its own clock. With sunshine that barely changes from season to season, the islands simply decided there was no reason to keep fiddling with the hands.
