Tanzanian time

Tanzanian time is three hours ahead of GMT, and thus two hours ahead of Western Europe, eight ahead of New York, eleven ahead of San Francisco, one ahead of Johannesburg, seven hours behind Sydney and nine behind Wellington.

Swahili time

A point of endless confusion for travellers, and with the potential to cause major problems for the uninitiated, is the concept known as Swahili time, used mainly on the coast and other regions where Swahili is the lingua franca. Swahili time begins at dawn, or more precisely at 6am. In other words, 6am is their hour zero (and thus equivalent to our midnight), 7am in our time is actually one o’clock in Swahili and so on.To add further confusion, this system for telling the time is not prevalent throughout the whole of Tanzania, with most offices, timetables etc using the standard style for telling the time. Whenever you’re quoted a time it should be obvious which clock they are using, but always double check.

For a more detailed discussion on Swahili time, visit the Kamusi project site at Yale.

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