Lima
UTC−5Peru · PET
Sat, 8 Aug 2026
Timezone Guide
Lima, Peru runs on UTC−5. This time zone stays fixed year-round at UTC−5 — daylight saving time is not observed. There is a 1-hour difference between Lima and New York. Standard 9-to-6 working hours overlap for about 8 hours a day with New York. A good time to connect: 09:00–17:00 in Lima lines up with 10:00–18:00 in New York. There is a 6-hour difference between Lima and London. Standard 9-to-6 working hours overlap for about 3 hours a day with London. A good time to connect: 09:00–12:00 in Lima lines up with 15:00–18:00 in London. There is a 14-hour difference between Lima 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 Chicago, Bogotá, Quito. Keeping these offsets in mind makes it easier to schedule calls or travel to and from Lima.
Practical Info
Lima (Peru) is home to roughly 10.7M people. Today brings about 11.1 hours of daylight: sunrise at 06:42, sunset at 17:48. This time zone stays fixed year-round at UTC−5 — daylight saving time is not observed. It sits in the Southern Hemisphere, about 12° south of the equator. Traffic drives on the right.
Flag
Peru
Capital
Lima 👑
Continent
South America
Time Zone
PET · America/Lima
Coordinates
12.05°S, 77.04°W
Currency
PEN (S/)
Calling Code
+51
Driving Side
Right
Hemisphere
Southern
Language
Spanish
Measurement System
Metric
Did You Know?
A City with 98% Humidity and Almost No Rain
1. Lima gets under 10 millimetres of rain a year.
Estimates vary between about 7 and 16 millimetres depending on the measuring period, but the picture is consistent: this is one of the driest capital cities on Earth, second only to Cairo. It is also the world's second-largest desert city, again after Cairo.
For comparison, London gets around 600 millimetres. Lima receives roughly one-eightieth of that.
2. And yet the humidity reaches 98%.
The cold Humboldt Current runs up this coast, chilling the air above it. Cold air holds less moisture, so instead of rain the city gets garúa — a persistent grey drizzle-fog that sits over Lima for months at a time.
The result is a genuine climatic oddity: Lima records around 1,230 hours of sunshine a year, fewer than London, despite sitting at 12° south, deep in the tropics. A tropical city, permanently overcast, in a desert.
3. Ten million people drink water that starts as glacier melt above 5,000 metres.
Lima depends on three Andean rivers — the Rímac, Chillón and Lurín — and roughly 80% of its supply comes from the Rímac basin alone. The Rímac rises above 5,000 metres and carries snowmelt and glacial runoff down to a coastal desert.
Retreating Andean glaciers are the long-term risk. In the meantime, fog-catching nets have been strung on hillsides to harvest water from the air, and one engineering university built a billboard that condenses atmospheric humidity into drinking water, storing it in 20-litre tanks.
A city with no rain and 98% humidity has started collecting the humidity.
4. The oldest university in the Americas has been open since 1551.
The National University of San Marcos has operated continuously for 475 years — longer than any other in the hemisphere.
The clock: Lima sits at about 77° west, on UTC−5, which is built for the 75th meridian. The city runs roughly eight minutes ahead of its own solar noon — very well aligned.
Not that anyone can see it. At 12° south the day length barely moves all year, varying only between about eleven and a half and thirteen hours. Combine a sky that does not change with a sun that is usually behind cloud, and you have a city where the passage of the day is signalled mainly by the grey getting lighter and then darker again.
Sources
- WorldAtlas (yılda ~7 mm yağış; Kahire'den sonra ikinci büyük çöl şehri ve ikinci en kurak başkent; Humboldt Akıntısı ve Atacama'nın kuzey kenarı; ~9,7 milyon metropol nüfusu; 1551'de kurulan San Marcos'un Amerika'nın kesintisiz çalışan en eski üniversitesi olması)
- Geography Worlds (yılda 10-16 mm; üç And nehri; **yılda ~1.230 güneş saati — Londra'dan az**; 12°G konumu)
- The Andean Post / Aquafondo (su arzının ~%80'inin Rímac havzasından gelmesi; Rímac'ın 5.000 metre üzerinde doğması; 10 mm'nin altında yağışla 10 milyondan fazla insanın yaşaması)
- EBSCO (yıllık ortalama 0,7 cm yağış; garúa)
- ArchDaily / UTEC (Peru'nun atmosferik neminin %98'e ulaşması; nemi içme suyuna çeviren reklam panosu ve 20 litrelik tanklar)
- Boylam hesabı: Lima 77,03°B, UTC−5 meridyeni 75°B → ~8 dakika
Annual Daylight
Working Hours
4h overlap