Explaining Why Singapore SHOULD NOT Be at GMT+8

The Blue Cats’ website: https://www.thebluecats.com.sg/ The Blue Cats' Instagram:   / singaporethebluecats   -------- Time zones exist to standardise the different timings used across regions. In the 1880s, the world agreed to divide the Earth into 24 vertical strips anchored to Greenwich in London, which is why GMT stands for Greenwich Mean Time. Each strip is 15 degrees of longitude wide and exactly one hour apart. Singapore sits at about 103.8 degrees east of Greenwich, which places it within the GMT+7 strip alongside Bangkok and Jakarta. Despite this, Singapore uses GMT+8. Singapore's clock has changed six times over the past 120 years. On 1 June 1905, the British standardised Malaya to GMT+7:00. In 1933, it shifted to GMT+7:20 due to daylight saving. In September 1941, it moved forward another 10 minutes to GMT+7:30, partly to align with BBC overseas radio programming during the war. In 1942, under Japanese occupation, it switched to GMT+9:00, matching Japanese time. In 1945, after the British retook Singapore, it returned to GMT+7:30. The final change came in December 1981. Malaysia was running two time zones at once, with West Malaysia on GMT+7:30 and East Malaysia on GMT+8. To unify the country, the Malaysian government moved West Malaysia forward by 30 minutes to GMT+8. Singapore, then on GMT+7:30, chose to follow. On 20 December 1981, the Singapore Ministry of Culture announced the move to GMT+8, effective 1 January 1982, citing trade, travel, and close ties with Malaysia. The shift also improved business overlap, allowing Singapore to catch the end of America's trading day before passing to London, while aligning with Hong Kong and gaining more overlap with Japan, a major investor at the time. At 11:30pm on 31 December 1981, the clocks jumped straight to midnight. Since 1 January 1982, Singapore has run about one full hour ahead of solar time. This explains why sunrise occurs so late compared to other countries. Even near the equator, where daylight should last a clean 12 hours, the sun rises around 7am rather than 6am. Anyone who wakes before sunrise and senses something is off is correct, as the clock sits roughly an hour ahead of where the sun would place it.