What time is it up there?

Question: What time zone is Alaska in?
Answer:

Most of Alaska is located in the Alaska Time Zone. The far reaches of the Aleutian Chain and St. Laurence Island are located in the Hawaiian-Aleutian Time Zone.
To calculate what time it is currently in Alaska, you'll need to subtract a certain number of hours from Universal Time (UTC). Universal Time is usually known as Greenwich Mean Time.

• Alaska Daylight Time: subtract 8 hours from UTC
• Alaska Standard Time: subtract 9 hours from UTC
• Hawaii-Aleutian Daylight Time: subtract 9 hours from UTC
• Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time: subtract 10 hours from UTC

Alaska Standard Time is 4 hours behind Eastern Standard Time and 1 hour behind Pacific Standard Time.
For more information on U.S. time zones and Universal Time, visit the U.S. Naval Observatory's home page at http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/index.php

Alaska Time Zone history

On October 30, 1983, when daylight time reverted to standard time, Alaska changed from four time zones to two time zones. Before the change, Alaska's time zones were:

• Pacific time (southeastern Alaska)
• Yukon time (Yakutat)
• Alaska time (from just east of Cold Bay and west of Yakutat northward, including Nome)
• Bering time (the north coast of Alaska and the Aleutian chain)

The change was done to facilitate doing business in Alaska, improve communications and unify residents.