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1200 Military Time

Right now----:00(--:-- --)your device's clock

1200 is 12:00 PM, said twelve hundred hours.

Military time12h to 24h
Military time
Enter a time
Said
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24-hour
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Standard
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Minutes
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Military time chart
StandardMilitary
12:00 AM0000
1:00 AM0100
2:00 AM0200
3:00 AM0300
4:00 AM0400
5:00 AM0500
6:00 AM0600
7:00 AM0700
8:00 AM0800
9:00 AM0900
10:00 AM1000
11:00 AM1100
StandardMilitary
12:00 PM1200
1:00 PM1300
2:00 PM1400
3:00 PM1500
4:00 PM1600
5:00 PM1700
6:00 PM1800
7:00 PM1900
8:00 PM2000
9:00 PM2100
10:00 PM2200
11:00 PM2300

PM hours 1–11 add 12; 12 PM stays 12; 12 AM becomes 00. Four digits, no colon: 1730 is 5:30 PM.

The 1200 hour, every quarter

Military12-hourSaid as
120012:00 PMtwelve hundred hours
121512:15 PMtwelve fifteen
123012:30 PMtwelve thirty
124512:45 PMtwelve forty-five

What 1200 means on a shift

Noon is lunch on most schedules and the end of a half day. The 0800 start is 4 hours in; the 0600 start is 6 hours in and probably on break. A lot of timesheets show 1200 to 1230 or 1200 to 1300 as the lunch deduction. Noon is also the moment the 12-hour clock changes from AM to PM, which it does without the numbers moving.

The mistake people make with 1200

12 PM is noon and it is 1200. 12 AM is midnight and it is 0000. People get this backwards constantly, and it is worse in writing than in speech because 12:00 PM looks like it should be the later one. The rule: PM starts at noon, so 12 PM is the first minute of PM, which is 1200. Midnight starts AM, so 12 AM is 0000. Everything from 12:01 PM to 12:59 PM is 1201 to 1259; nothing is added to 12 even though it is PM.

1200 is noon: 12:00 PM, the middle of the day. It is spoken twelve hundred hours. This is the hour that causes more conversion mistakes than any other, because 12 is the only number that appears in both AM and PM and means opposite things.

Worked examples

12:00 PM to military
1200, twelve hundred hours. Noon. Do not add twelve to 12.
12:30 PM to military
1230. The hour stays 12 because it is already the PM noon hour.
12:30 AM to military
0030. This is half past midnight, not half past noon. The hour is 00.

How it is calculated

12 PM is the one PM hour that does not add twelve: 12:xx PM becomes 12xx. 12 AM is the one AM hour that does not keep its number: 12:xx AM becomes 00xx. So 1200 is noon and 0000 is midnight.

Questions people ask

Is 1200 noon or midnight?
Noon. Midnight is 0000 (or 2400 at the end of a day). 1200 is 12:00 PM.
Is 12 PM 1200 or 2400?
1200. 12 PM is noon. 2400 is midnight at the end of a day, which is the same instant as 0000 at the start of the next.
What is 1215 in regular time?
12:15 PM, a quarter past noon.
Why is 12 AM midnight and 12 PM noon?
AM means before noon and PM means after noon. The first minute after midnight is as far before noon as you can be, so midnight is 12 AM; the first minute after noon is the start of PM, so noon is 12 PM.
How do you say 1200 in military time?
Twelve hundred hours. Noon is also fine in conversation.
What is 1259 in standard time?
12:59 PM. One minute later is 1300, which is 1:00 PM.

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