PST — Pacific Standard Time

Pacific Standard Time (PST) is eight hours behind Coordinated Universal Time and covers the western coast of the United States and Canada. Major cities include Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver. As the time zone of Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and the major West Coast ports, PST has an outsized influence on the technology, entertainment, and trade industries.

The Pacific time zone was established alongside the other North American time zones in 1883 when railroads adopted standardized time. The zone stretches from the Pacific coast eastward to the borders of Nevada, Idaho, and British Columbia's interior. It is the last of the four contiguous U.S. time zones to start each business day, which means West Coast financial markets open three hours after those in New York.

PST observes daylight saving time, moving clocks forward one hour to Pacific Daylight Time (PDT, UTC-7) from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November. The time difference between the Pacific and Eastern zones means that prime-time television programming, major sporting events, and live news broadcasts are often scheduled to accommodate both coasts.