Dakar
UTC+0Senegal · GMT
Sat, 8 Aug 2026
Timezone Guide
Dakar, Senegal runs on UTC+0. This time zone stays fixed year-round at UTC+0 — daylight saving time is not observed. There is a 4-hour difference between Dakar and New York. Standard 9-to-6 working hours overlap for about 5 hours a day with New York. A good time to connect: 13:00–18:00 in Dakar lines up with 09:00–14:00 in New York. There is a 1-hour difference between Dakar and London. Standard 9-to-6 working hours overlap for about 8 hours a day with London. A good time to connect: 09:00–17:00 in Dakar lines up with 10:00–18:00 in London. There is a 9-hour difference between Dakar and Tokyo. Standard working hours don't overlap at all with Tokyo, so meetings need an early or late slot on one side. This timezone is also shared with cities such as Reykjavík, Accra. Keeping these offsets in mind makes it easier to schedule calls or travel to and from Dakar.
Practical Info
Dakar (Senegal) is home to roughly 3.9M people. Today brings about 12.8 hours of daylight: sunrise at 06:42, sunset at 19:30. This time zone stays fixed year-round at UTC+0 — daylight saving time is not observed. It sits in the Northern Hemisphere, about 15° north of the equator. Traffic drives on the right.
Flag
Senegal
Capital
Dakar 👑
Continent
Africa
Time Zone
GMT · Africa/Dakar
Coordinates
14.72°N, 17.47°W
Currency
XOF (CFA)
Calling Code
+221
Driving Side
Right
Hemisphere
Northern
Language
French
Measurement System
Metric
Did You Know?
The Westernmost Point in Africa Keeps Greenwich Time
1. Pointe des Almadies is the westernmost point of the African continent — and of the entire Afro-Eurasian landmass.
It sits at 14°44′27″N, 17°31′48″W, on the northwestern tip of the Cap Vert peninsula, inside greater Dakar. The marker stands on a stretch of sand behind an abandoned resort.
For scale: it is eight degrees further west than Cabo da Roca, mainland Europe's westernmost point. Head due west from here and the first land you meet is Brava, in Cabo Verde, 770 kilometres away.
2. And Senegal runs on Greenwich Mean Time.
UTC+0 — the same clock as Accra, 2,000 kilometres east.
But Accra sits on the meridian. Dakar sits 17.5 degrees west of it.
Which puts Dakar's clock roughly 70 minutes ahead of its own solar noon — one of the widest gaps of any city on this site, comparable to İzmir's seventy-one and ahead of Singapore's sixty-five.
Two West African capitals, the same time zone, the same offset from UTC. In one of them the clock and the sun agree to within minutes. In the other they are more than an hour apart.
3. The city exists because of the peanut.
Dakar was founded in 1857 when the French built a fort on what is now Place de l'Indépendance. What made it a capital was the opening of West Africa's first railway in 1886, running from Saint-Louis to Dakar. The line stimulated groundnut cultivation along its length and turned the port into an export centre. By 1902 Dakar had replaced Saint-Louis as the capital of French West Africa.
Peanut-oil refining remains one of the city's principal industries, alongside fishing and the deepwater port — one of the largest on the West African coast.
4. The fishing fleet still runs on daylight, not the clock.
The pirogues — long, brightly painted wooden boats — go out and come back with the light, unloading at markets like Soumbédioune and the one beside the Mosque of the Divinity at dawn.
Which is the only sensible arrangement available. In a city seventy minutes ahead of its own sun, the boats keep the more accurate time.
Sources
- Wikipedia, *Pointe des Almadies* (14°44′27″K 17°31′48″B; Afrika ve Afro-Avrasya kara kütlesinin en batı noktası; Greenwich meridyeninin 17,5 derece batısı; Cabo da Roca'dan sekiz derece batıda)
- Britannica, *Dakar* (1857'de Fransızların kale inşası; 1886'da Batı Afrika'nın ilk demiryolu ve yer fıstığı ticaretine etkisi; 1902'de Saint-Louis'nin yerini alması; yer fıstığı yağı rafinajı, balıkçılık ve kamyon montajı)
- Mind of a Hitchhiker (Almadies'ten 770 km batıda Cabo Verde'deki Brava; terk edilmiş tesislerin arkasındaki konum)
- Atlas Obscura (işaretin konumu ve erişim)
- Explorinder (Soumbédioune ve İlahiyat Camii yanındaki balık pazarları; pirogue'ların şafakta boşaltması)
- Encyclopedia.com (derin su limanının Batı Afrika'daki konumu)
- Boylam hesabı: Dakar 17,45°B, UTC+0 meridyeni 0° → ~70 dakika
Annual Daylight
Working Hours
9h overlapSame timezone as your location.