# Romania's time — From Craiova noon to Greenwich mean time

When Bucharest read noon, Iași already read 12:06 and Craiova only 11:51.

The page at https://mariuscomper.uk/ora-romaniei-meridian/en/ shows the
change in a calculator: pick a city from Iași, Craiova and Sulina, slide
the year across 1891 and watch the scattered noon markers all fall on
12:00.

## The noons, in brief

Until 1891 each place measured noon by its own Sun: Iași noon came about
6 minutes before Bucharest, Craiova about 9 minutes after, and Sulina
about 14 minutes before.

From 1 October 1891 the railways ran on a single time, Bucharest mean
time (about one hour and 44 minutes ahead of Greenwich). Eastern European
Time, Greenwich plus two hours, arrived only in 1931.

One specific reservation: a September 2026 discussion of the time-zone
record argues that station clocks were put forward 16 minutes on the night
of the change (the 30°E meridian hour, not Bucharest time) and that
railway time became official only on 1 December old style, through Royal
Decree no. 3111. The published record keeps Bucharest time, and the page
follows it; nobody disputes the date of the night, 1 October.

Pre-1891 local times are approximate reconstructions from rounded
longitudes (Bucharest 26.10°E; Iași 27.59°E; Craiova 23.82°E; Sulina
29.65°E; each degree means four minutes), not quotations from an archive
timetable. The 1891 legal text is not quoted: the regulation predates the
electronic law archive, and Decree 3111 appears only as a claim from the
discussion cited below.

## Sources

- The international time-zone database, Europe/Bucharest line: https://lists.iana.org/hyperkitty/list/tz@iana.org/thread/7OFZI2JJZ3WQYIPNKPQMPCJLO3M4ETYF/
- Romania's clock-change tables: https://www.timezones.de/zeitumstellungen/romania/ilfov/chiajna.html
- Sorin Marin, a history of the Bucharest Observatory (RoAJ 27/2, pp. 107–116): https://www.astro.ro/~roaj/27_2/10-smarin.pdf
- The legislative portal: https://legislatie.just.ro/
- The Romanian Academy Library: https://biblacad.ro/
- The September 2026 record discussion carrying the 1891–1931 correction proposal: https://lists.iana.org/hyperkitty/list/tz@iana.org/message/K7W2CV74N6QR2PMOMPKWBTUNYY4KFYPT/

© 2026 Marius Comper.