Atikokan, Canada · UTC-5
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Atikokan is in the America/Atikokan timezone (EST/UTC-5). It is the only Canadian municipality that uses Eastern Standard Time permanently, never observing daylight saving.
Atikokan is a small mining town in northwestern Ontario with a population of around 3,000 people, and it has something no other Canadian municipality can claim: its own IANA timezone entry. America/Atikokan exists specifically because Atikokan observes Eastern Standard Time, UTC-5, year-round without daylight saving.
When the rest of Ontario springs forward in March and moves to UTC-4, Atikokan stays at UTC-5. For most of the year, Atikokan is on the same clock as Chicago and Winnipeg, which are in the Central Time zone. During North American summer, Atikokan is in practice in the same time as Chicago, even though it is formally classified under Eastern Time.
The town sits in the Canadian Shield near the Quetico Provincial Park wilderness area. It was founded around an iron ore mine that closed in the 1970s. The town has since pivoted to forestry, tourism, and a wood pellet manufacturing industry.
How Atikokan got its own timezone
Atikokan is geographically in the Central time zone’s territory, but historically aligned with Eastern Time due to its administrative connections to Ontario. When Ontario adopted DST, Atikokan chose not to follow. The result: its own timezone entry in the IANA database, making it one of the smallest places with that distinction.
9am in Atikokan is 2pm in London during European winter.
Sources
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Questions about time in Atikokan
- What timezone is Atikokan in?
- Atikokan uses the IANA timezone
America/Atikokan. The UTC offset is always UTC-5 - this timezone does not observe daylight saving time. - Does Atikokan observe daylight saving time?
- No. Atikokan does not observe daylight saving time. The UTC offset remains UTC-5 all year round.
- What is the current UTC offset for Atikokan?
- Atikokan is currently at UTC-5.
- What is the time difference between Atikokan and New York?
- Atikokan is currently 1 hour behind New York.
- What is the time difference between Atikokan and London?
- Atikokan is currently 6 hours behind London.
- What is the time difference between Atikokan and Los Angeles?
- Atikokan is currently 2 hours ahead of Los Angeles.
- What is the time difference between Atikokan and Tokyo?
- Atikokan is currently 14 hours behind Tokyo.
- What is the IANA timezone name for Atikokan?
- The IANA timezone database identifier for Atikokan is
America/Atikokan. Use this string in programming languages and APIs: JavaScript (`new Intl.DateTimeFormat('en-US', { timeZone: 'America/Atikokan' })`), Python (`pytz.timezone('America/Atikokan')`), or any IANA-compatible library.