How To Change Timezone on a CentOS 6 and 7

CentOS timezone config files and directories

1. /usr/share/zoneinfo/ – The system timezone directory contains the files as per timezone name. For example, the file /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York represents time zone for New York.
2. /etc/localtime – It is a symlink to the file localtime or to the correct timezone file in the system located in /usr/share/zoneinfo/ directory.

Change Timezone on a CentOS 6 and 7

Let us see some examples to change timezone or set a new time zone on a CentOS Linux.

How do I see the current time zone on CentOS Linux?

Type the date command or the ls command:
$ date
$ ls -l /etc/localtime
Sample outputs:

Fig.01: Finding current timezone on a CentOS Linux

Change the current timezone in CentOS 7

To find list of all available time zones, run:
# timedatectl list-timezones
##*** Grep possible Asian timezones ***##
# timedatectl list-timezones | grep Asia
Sample outputs:

Africa/Abidjan
Africa/Accra
Africa/Addis_Ababa
Africa/Algiers
Africa/Asmara
Africa/Bamako
Africa/Bangui
Africa/Banjul
....
..
America/Dawson
America/Dawson_Creek
America/Denver
America/Detroit
America/Dominica
America/Edmonton
America/Eirunepe
America/El_Salvador
America/Fortaleza
America/Glace_Bay
....
..
Pacific/Saipan
Pacific/Tahiti
Pacific/Tarawa
Pacific/Tongatapu
Pacific/Wake
Pacific/Wallis

The syntax is as follows to set timezone and need to run as root user:
# timedatectl set-timezone time_zone
In this example, set timezone to America/Chicago
# timedatectl set-timezone America/Chicago
Verify new settings by typing the following two commands:
# date
# ls -l /etc/localtime
Sample outputs:

Fig.02: Change the currently used time zone

Change the current timezone in CentOS 6 and older

You need to use the ln command to set timezone on Centos 6. Type the following commands as root:

cp /etc/localtime /root/old.timezone
rm /etc/localtime
ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Chicago /etc/localtime

Verify new settings by typing the following two commands:

date
ls -l /etc/localtime

Conclusion

You just learned how to change Timezone on CentOS Linux version 5, 6, and 7. The commands described here should also work with RHEL version 5, 6, and 7. For more info on timezone see this wiki page here. I also suggest that you read the following man pages using the man command:
$ man 1 timedatectl