GMT-9 Time Zone Countries list - UTC-9 Time Now

Alaska on standard time

Alaska Standard Time (AKST) is UTC−9, and it covers almost the whole state on one clock — a span of longitude that would justify several zones if convenience had lost the argument. Cities on it include:

Anchorage, the largest city and the usual reference point for "Alaska time". Juneau, the state capital, and Sitka and Ketchikan in the southeast. Fairbanks in the interior. Nome and Utqiagvik in the west and far north.

The eastern Aleutians, including Unalaska and Dutch Harbor. The exception is the far-western Aleutian chain, which keeps UTC−10 in winter under the Hawaii-Aleutian name.

Gambier: the year-round UTC−9

Well south of Alaska, the Gambier Islands — Rikitea on Mangareva and its neighbours — sit on UTC−9 permanently. They are the easternmost of French Polynesia's three offsets, half an hour ahead of the Marquesas and a full hour ahead of Tahiti. Nothing there changes seasonally.

So the offset has a split character: a large seasonal population in the far north, and a very small fixed one in the South Pacific.

What happens in March and November

Alaska follows the United States daylight saving schedule. On the second Sunday in March, clocks move to Alaska Daylight Time (AKDT), which is UTC−8. On the first Sunday in November they return to UTC−9. Two consequences are worth noting:

For most of the summer, UTC−9 in North America means the western Aleutians on daylight time, not Anchorage. Alaska stays exactly one hour behind US Pacific cities all year, because both sides switch on the same dates.

Alaska runs a state wider than the contiguous ones on a single clock, and it works — proof that a time zone is a social agreement wearing a scientific costume. At high latitudes the seasonal shift also does something odd. In Fairbanks in June the sun barely sets whatever the clock says, and in December the extra hour of evening light being "saved" does not exist to begin with. The switch persists mainly because the rest of the country switches, and staying aligned with Seattle and Chicago is worth more than optimising for daylight nobody has.