ISO 8601 facts for kids
| Date | 2025-06-25 |
|---|---|
| Date and time in UTC | 2025-06-25T08:35:19+00:00 2025-06-25T08:35:19Z 20250625T083519Z |
| Week | 2025-W26 |
| Date with week number | 2025-W26-3 |
| Date without year | --06-25 |
| Ordinal date | 2025-176 |
ISO 8601 is an international standard that helps computers and people understand dates and times in a clear, simple way. Think of it as a special language for writing down dates and times so there's no confusion.
This standard puts the biggest numbers first and the smallest numbers last. For example, years are bigger than months, and months are bigger than days. So, an ISO date always goes YEAR-MONTH-DAY.
A basic ISO date for today looks like 2025-06-25. The basic ISO time is 08:35.
What is ISO 8601?
ISO 8601 is a set of rules created by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). This organization makes standards for many things around the world. The goal of ISO 8601 is to make sure everyone writes dates and times in the same way. This is very helpful for computers and for people from different countries.
How Does It Work?
The main idea behind ISO 8601 is to be very clear and avoid mistakes. In some countries, people write the month first, like 04/01/2024 (April 1st). In other countries, they write the day first, like 01/04/2024 (January 4th). This can cause a lot of confusion!
ISO 8601 solves this by always using the order:
- Year (like 2024)
- Month (like 04 for April)
- Day (like 01)
So, April 1st, 2024, would always be written as 2024-04-01.
Why is it Useful?
One of the best things about ISO 8601 dates is how they sort themselves. If you put a list of ISO 8601 dates into alphabetical order, they will also be in chronological order (meaning from oldest to newest). This makes it super easy for computers to organize information.
For example:
- 2023-12-25 (Christmas 2023)
- 2024-01-01 (New Year's Day 2024)
- 2024-04-01 (April Fools' Day 2024)
Even though people don't often use this standard in their everyday writing, it's very important behind the scenes. It helps computers, software, and international businesses work smoothly together.
