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Switzerland uses Central European Time (CET) during the winter as standard time, which is one hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC+01:00), and Central European Summer Time (CEST) during the summer as daylight saving time, which is two hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC+02:00).[1]
The electrical telegraph was introduced in Switzerland in 1851, which allowed near real-time communication, especially amongst post offices. By July 1853, all telegraph and post offices across Switzerland were using Bernese time,[2] a local mean time measured from the Zytglogge clocktower[3] at UTC+00:29:45.5.[lower-alpha 1] Bernese time was also used on train timetables by at least 1873.[5] On 1 June 1894, UTC+01:00 was officially adopted nationwide.[6] Daylight saving time was first attempted between 1941 and 1942, by moving the clocks forward one hour at 01:00 on the first Monday in May, and back again at 02:00 on the first Monday in October.[citation needed] The decision to observe daylight saving time was made by the Federal Council on behalf of the recommendation of the Federal Chancellery.[7]
Whilst DST was introduced in much of Western Europe in the spring of 1980, Switzerland did not implement DST until the following year. This resulted in there being a one-hour time difference between Switzerland and most of Western Europe, including all of the bordering countries (with the exception of Liechtenstein) for around six months in 1980.[citation needed]
The German village of Büsingen am Hochrhein, a small exclave, entirely surrounded by Swiss territory, did not implement DST in 1980 either and observed the same time as Switzerland, meaning there was a one-hour time difference between this village and the rest of Germany. The zone Europe/Busingen was created in the 2013a release of the tz database,[8] because since the Unix time epoch in 1970, Büsingen has shared clocks with Zurich.[9]
Since 1981 the shifts to DST occur on the date as specified for European Summer Time.[citation needed]
The difference of longitude between the western and easternmost points of Switzerland is equivalent to 4°32′09", resulting in a difference of approximately 18 minutes of solar time.[citation needed]
The IANA time zone database contains one zone for Switzerland in the file zone.tab, named Europe/Zurich. Columns marked with * are the columns from zone.tab itself.[citation needed]
| c.c.* | Coordinates* | TZ* | Comments* | UTC offset | UTC DST offset |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CH | +4723+00832 | Europe/Zurich | Büsingen | +01:00 | +02:00 |
Computers not supporting "Europe/Zurich" may use the older POSIX syntax: TZ='CET-1CEST,M3.5.0/2,M10.5.0/3'[citation needed]
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