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# TimeZone

Information about standard time conventions associated with a specific geopolitical region.

```
struct TimeZone
```

## Overview

`TimeZone` defines the behavior of a time zone. Time zone values represent geopolitical regions. Consequently, these values have names for these regions. Time zone values also represent a temporal offset, either plus or minus, from Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and an abbreviation (such as PST for Pacific Standard Time).

`TimeZone` provides two static functions to get time zone values: `current` and `autoupdatingCurrent`. The `autoupdatingCurrent` time zone automatically tracks updates made by the user.

Note that time zone database entries such as “America/Los_Angeles” are IDs, not names. An example of a time zone name is “Pacific Daylight Time”. Although many `TimeZone` functions include the word “name”, they refer to IDs.

Cocoa does not provide any API to change the time zone of the computer, or of other applications.

## Topics

### Getting the Current Time Zone

[`autoupdatingCurrent`](/documentation/Foundation/TimeZone/autoupdatingCurrent)

The time zone currently used by the system, automatically updating to the user’s current preference.

[`current`](/documentation/Foundation/TimeZone/current)

The time zone currently used by the system.

### Creating a Time Zone

[`init(secondsFromGMT:)`](/documentation/Foundation/TimeZone/init(secondsFromGMT:))

Returns a time zone initialized with a specific number of seconds from GMT.

[`knownTimeZoneIdentifiers`](/documentation/Foundation/TimeZone/knownTimeZoneIdentifiers)

Returns an array of strings listing the identifier of all the time zones known to the system.

[`abbreviationDictionary`](/documentation/Foundation/TimeZone/abbreviationDictionary)

Returns the mapping of abbreviations to time zone identifiers.

### Getting Time Zone Information

[`identifier`](/documentation/Foundation/TimeZone/identifier)

The geopolitical region identifier that identifies the time zone.

[`abbreviation(for:)`](/documentation/Foundation/TimeZone/abbreviation(for:))

Returns the abbreviation for the time zone at a given date.

[`secondsFromGMT(for:)`](/documentation/Foundation/TimeZone/secondsFromGMT(for:))

The current difference in seconds between the time zone and Greenwich Mean Time.

[`timeZoneDataVersion`](/documentation/Foundation/TimeZone/timeZoneDataVersion)

Returns the time zone data version.

### Working with Daylight Savings

[`isDaylightSavingTime(for:)`](/documentation/Foundation/TimeZone/isDaylightSavingTime(for:))

Returns a Boolean value that indicates whether the receiver uses daylight saving time at a given date.

[`daylightSavingTimeOffset(for:)`](/documentation/Foundation/TimeZone/daylightSavingTimeOffset(for:))

Returns the daylight saving time offset for a given date.

[`nextDaylightSavingTimeTransition`](/documentation/Foundation/TimeZone/nextDaylightSavingTimeTransition)

The date of the next (after the current instant) daylight saving time transition for the time zone.

[`nextDaylightSavingTimeTransition(after:)`](/documentation/Foundation/TimeZone/nextDaylightSavingTimeTransition(after:))

Returns the next daylight saving time transition after a given date.

### Describing Time Zones

[`localizedName(for:locale:)`](/documentation/Foundation/TimeZone/localizedName(for:locale:))

Returns the name of the receiver localized for a given locale.

### Working with notification messages

[`TimeZone.SystemTimeZoneDidChangeMessage`](/documentation/Foundation/TimeZone/SystemTimeZoneDidChangeMessage)

A message the system sends when the system time zone changes.

### Using Reference Types

[`NSTimeZone`](/documentation/Foundation/NSTimeZone)

Information about standard time conventions associated with a specific geopolitical region.


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