Configuring WordPress Date & Time Settings

Within WordPress there are a number of settings to help you get the date and time set to display just the way you’d like, whether that be using your timezone or another, if you’d like time in 12 or 24 hour format or even if you’d like the week to begin on a Sunday versus Monday (or some other day).

When configuring WordPress, all settings can be changed within the Admin panel, Settings → General.

Timezone

It’s up to you as to whether you set the timezone based on your timezone, that of your target audience, or some timezone based on where you want people to believe you, and your site, are located.

Choose a city within your timezone or choose the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) plus or minus the appropriate modifier. The easy way is to choose a city in your timezone like Los Angeles or Denver and move along.

Date Format

WordPress uses PHP date/time formats which number more than 40 different ways of displaying the month, day and year, including long versus short, name versus number plus comma and space versus hyphen separated.

The full rundown on what can be done is viewable on the w3schools.com website:

The easy approach is to choose one of the example date formats – job done.

Time Format

WordPress uses the PHP date/time formats for how the time is displayed as well.

Refer to the above page for all the myriad of different ways of displaying the time.

Just as with the date, it’s easiest to select one of the sample time formats shown on the WordPress Admin page.

Week Starts On

What constitutes the workweek is not globally the same, despite the assumption that Saturday and Sunday are the weekend (which is true in much of the western world).

Within some countries Thursday and Friday or Friday and Saturday form the weekend, with the week starting on Saturday or Sunday.

Configuring WordPress gives site owners control over when the week begins by being able to specify Week Starts On.

Finally

Once you’ve made changes to any or all of the above settings, be sure to scroll down and click Save Changes at the bottom.

Just remember that the changes you make are not just for you as an admin, but will be seen by all. Post date/time, comments… everything will reflect the updated timezone and date/time formatting, so keep your target audience in mind. These settings are not for the benefit of a single person but instead are designed to make the site more friendly and familiar for all.