China operates on China Standard Time (CST), which is 8 hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC+8). Despite spanning five geographical time zones, China uses a single official timezone across the entire country—the widest single-timezone country in the world.
All major cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, and Xi'an follow the same time. China does not observe daylight saving time. Hong Kong and Macau, as Special Administrative Regions, also use UTC+8 but have their own IANA timezone identifiers.
China spans 5,200 km from east to west, yet uses only one timezone—Beijing Time. This means in Xinjiang (western China), sunrise can be as late as 10 AM in winter. Some residents unofficially use "Xinjiang Time" (UTC+6) locally. Before 1949, China had five time zones. Mao Zedong unified the country to a single timezone to symbolize national unity.