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Daylight saving time

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World map. Europe, most of North America, parts of southern South America and southeastern Australia, and a few other places use DST. Most of equatorial Africa and a few other places near the equator have never used DST. The rest of the landmass is marked as formerly using DST.
Daylight saving time regions:      Northern hemisphere summer      Southern hemisphere summer      Formerly used daylight saving or permanently daylight saving      Never used daylight saving

Daylight saving time (DST) (USA), also known at summer time in the United Kingdom is a system which consist of setting forward all clocks in a country for part of the year. This system was created to save energy by moving people's daily schedule in the summer, so that they are awake when the sun is up. Since the difference between the length of day in the summer and in the winter is larger the further away from the equator you get, most countries near the equator don't use DST.

In the European Union, daylight saving time starts during the last Sunday of March, where clocks are set forward by one hour, and ends during the last Sunday of October, when clocks are set back by one hour. In the United States, this period starts during the second Sunday of March and ends during the first Sunday of November.

There are several ways to explain DST. We can say that on the last (second) Sunday on March, one sleeping hour is lost, and in the last Sunday of October (first Sunday of November), one sleeping hour is won. We can also say that there's a 23 hours day during the start of DST and a 25 hours day during the end of DST.