Did You Know?
Namibia Abolished Daylight Saving by Springing Forward Permanently
Namibia covers 825,615 square kilometres — roughly the size of Spain and Germany combined — with a population density of under four people per square kilometre. It is among the least densely populated countries in the world, alongside Mongolia and Australia.
In the ǁKharas Region in the south, 161,514 square kilometres hold 109,893 people: a density of 0.68 per square kilometre. Fewer than one person for every square kilometre, across an area larger than England and Wales together.
What fills the space instead is worth counting. More than 40% of Namibia's land area is under some form of conservation. It was one of the first countries — and the first in Africa — to write environmental protection into its constitution. It holds the world's largest population of free-roaming cheetah, estimated at around 2,500, and the largest free-roaming population of black rhino.
The recovery figures from the Kunene region are the striking ones. In 1982 the area held as few as 400 oryx, 600 springbok and 450 zebra. Today the numbers are around 29,000 oryx, 175,000 springbok and 18,800 zebra. Desert-adapted lions, down to fewer than 25 by the mid-1990s, now number over 150.
The clock: and in 2017 Namibia solved its daylight saving problem with a manoeuvre that almost nobody notices.
The country had observed DST since 1994, running on West Africa Time (UTC+1) in winter and moving to UTC+2 each summer. The Namibian Time Bill was approved by the National Council on 8 August 2017, after public hearings in which the majority supported it.
The change took effect on 3 September 2017 — the exact date on which Namibians would have put their clocks forward for summer anyway. Except this time they did not put them back. The country adopted Central Africa Time, UTC+2, as its permanent year-round standard.
The last act is the neat part. On 24 October 2017, daylight saving officially ended in Namibia. No clocks were changed, because the country had already switched zones.
It is the same move Iceland made in 1968: abolish the clock change by keeping summer time forever. Namibia did it forty-nine years later, and now shares a permanent clock with South Africa.
A country with fewer than four people per square kilometre decided that changing the clock twice a year was more coordination than it needed.
Sources
- timeanddate.com, *Namibia Adopts New Time Zone* (National Council approval on 8 August 2017; public hearings; permanent switch from WAT to CAT; dated 3 September)
- timeanddate.com, *Time Change 2017 in Namibia* (**DST officially ended on October 24, 2017, but the times were not changed because Namibia had already switched time zone**)
- time.now (DST from 1994-2017; permanent UTC+02:00; Africa/Windhoek)
- Wikipedia, *Geography of Namibia* (825,615 km²; most sparsely populated after Mongolia); Namibia Statistics Agency, *2023 Population and Housing Census* (3,022,401 people; 3.7 people per km²)
- Wikipedia, *ǁKharas Region* (161,514 km², population 109,893, 0.68/km²)
- arebbusch.com (protected areas cover more than 40% of the land area)
- booknamibia.com (world's largest free-ranging cheetah population, ~2,500; environmental protection in the constitution)
- Natural Habitat Adventures / WWF (400 oryx, 600 springbok, 450 zebra in Kunene in 1982 → 29,000, 175,000, 18,800 today; desert lions increase from 25 to 150)