There is a lot of information on the internet about the dates when the country of Turkey used Daylight Savings Time, and unfortunately, not all of it is correct.

Many astrological software programs include atlases that include Turkey’s time changes, but also unfortunately, some of these are based on incorrect data and will, therefore, calculate charts that may be off a whole hour.

So how do you tell if the website, or the astrological program, is giving you the correct timezone for Turkey?

The best way is to go to a reliable source to verify the time changes. And probably THE most reliable source is the Turkish Government, since they are the ones that have always decided what the time should be in their country on any given date.

Astro Gold, and Solar Fire, use the ACS atlas for longitude, latitude and time zones. And this atlas uses the Turkish time zone data that have been decreed by the country’s government. You can rely on the calculations of these programs.

However, since the late 1960’s and early 1970’s have been showing up a number of places with incorrect data, I am going to give you a table (based on Turkish Government documentation) so you will know for sure whether your chart is using standard time (two hours from UT) or daylight savings time (three hours from UT). (Note: DST continued 1974-1977, but was then again not observed 1978 or 1979):

By Zane B Stein