What is coordinated universal time and why is it abbreviated to UTC?
Answer UTC is just the name that officially replaced the term GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) the key international reference time upon which all the world’s timezones are based. Most people still call it GMT. The letters “UTC” are basically a compromise between the English “Coordinated Universal Time” (CUT) and the French “Temps Universel Coordiné” (TUC). The use of “UTC” also maintains consistency with other official time abbreviations like UT0 and UT1 which offer different degrees of precision. Unless you want to know what time it is to the millisecond (you really don’t) then for all intents and purposes UTC and GMT are the same thing. As a general rule: If you want to be politically correct say ‘UTC’. If you want people to understand what you’re talking about then say ‘GMT’. Just to ensure widespread confusion, UTC is also sometimes called Z Time, Zulu Time, Zero Time or Universal Time (UT). They all still mean the same thing:- The official (solar) time of day on the Greenwich meridian (
