Time in Michigan

Michigan observes Eastern Time, except for four counties and two cities, which observe Central Time.

Map of Michigan time zones. Counties in red follow Central Time while counties in yellow follow Eastern Time.

History

Before time zones were introduced, every place used local observation of the sun to set their clocks, which means they used local mean time, every city different based on their longitude. Detroit used 05:32:11 west of Greenwich and Menominee 05:50:27 west of Greenwich.

Time zones were introduced in the United States in 1883. This was in introduced in different years based on local decisions. Detroit introduced Central time on January 1, 1905.[1] and Menominee on 18 September 18, 1885.[2] In 1942, Detroit and most of Michigan changed to Eastern time.

In 1967, when the Uniform Time Act came into effect, the Upper Peninsula went under year-round CST, with no daylight saving time.[3] In 1973, the majority of the peninsula switched to Eastern Time;[4] only the four western counties of Gogebic, Iron, Dickinson, and Menominee continue to observe Central Time.

IANA time zone database

The zone for Michigan as given by zone.tab of the IANA time zone database[5]

c.c.	coordinates	TZ	comments	UTC offset	UTC offset DST	Note
US	[phone]	America/Detroit	Eastern Time - Michigan - most locations	−05:00	−04:00
US	[phone]	America/Menominee	Central Time - Michigan - Dickinson, Gogebic, Iron & Menominee Counties	−06:00	−05:00	Was used statewide from January 1, 1905 until May 15, 1915. This was prior to the advent of DST, so UTC-6 was used all year long

References

1. Time Zones - Detroit
2. Time Zones - Menominee
3. "State Constitutions: Referendum Row". Time. July 7, 1967. Retrieved July 25, 2007.
4. Law, Gwillim (February 19, 2007). "United States Time Zones". Statoids. Retrieved July 25, 2007.
5. http://www.iana.org/time-zones

See also

• Time in the United States