How to get WordPress Time Zone setting?

Like Rarst said, but to get the actual string you use the getName method of DateTimeZone.

wp_timezone()->getName()

And if you want the abbreviation:

wp_date('T')

The unfortunate situation is that there are indeed two different options:

1. Newer timezone_string, which saves PHP–style time zone.
2. Older gmt_offset, which saves numeric float offset in hours.

But in newer environments timezone_string actually overrides gmt_offset, the value returned by the latter will be based on the former. However the opposite isn't true — gmt_offset might be valid, while timezone_string is empty.

WordPress 5.3 had shipped wp_timezone() function, that abstracts this and returns a valid DateTimeZone object, regardless of underlying WP settings.

Before that I had a take on it implemented in my WpDateTime library (for trivia that was used as a basis for core implementation):

class WpDateTimeZone extends \DateTimeZone {
    /**
     * Determine time zone from WordPress options and return as object.
     *
     * @return static
     */
    public static function getWpTimezone() {
        $timezone_string = get_option( 'timezone_string' );
        if ( ! empty( $timezone_string ) ) {
            return new static( $timezone_string );
        }
        $offset  = get_option( 'gmt_offset' );
        $hours   = (int) $offset;
        $minutes = abs( ( $offset - (int) $offset ) * 60 );
        $offset  = sprintf( '%+03d:%02d', $hours, $minutes );
        return new static( $offset );
    }
}

Given the fact that wordpress keeps the timezone string in the options table, you can use the object oriented way of getting the right time on your wordpress site:

$tz = new DateTimeZone(get_option('timezone_string'));
$dt = new DateTime("now", $tz);

$page .= "<p> DateTime " . $dt->format("Y-m-d H:i:s") . "</p>";

Check the Option Reference page. The option gmt_offset returns an integer. For example, if the timezone is set to Eastern time (e.g. America/New_York), gmt_offset should be -5.

There are a few options, none of which really work great. This is a WordPress bug, and it genuinely sucks because the time is wrong unless you set your site to UTC... which is confusing and not always even possible.

This next code I think only works if you choose your Timezone (Under Settings -> General in admin) as a named city instead of by an GMT number offset. I haven't tested this but it's very possible that get_option('gmt_offset') is set when get_option('timezone_string') is not.

date_default_timezone_set(get_option('timezone_string'));

The downside of this is that WordPress assumes PHP is set to UTC when making mysql timestamps, so you can mess up your database a little bit whenever you switch timezones! Not to mention other WP plugins may assume that the PHP environment is always in UTC.

So, if you just want a correct time -- you can force your timestamp to be in UTC with:

get_post_time('c', true); //should work for non-post objects.

Unfortunately, although correct, it'll make the timezone get set to UTC.

And note that you can't both use the "true" flag and the default timezone_set function.

Any proper solution is gonna be a code-snippet that accounts for both gmt_offset AND timezone_string and uses them to set a timezone on some input. WP assumes that PHP set to UTC when doing mysql timestamps, and it might break other plugins.

There's one such solution on https://www.skyverge.com/blog/down-the-rabbit-hole-wordpress-and-timezones/ but, again this is a BUG, so you should use the get_post_time($date_format, TRUE) code to get a timestamp that is actually correct.

Don't think you're gonna get a string like US/Eastern without storing all the strings you want in an array and referring to them. Using PHP you can get the timezone abbreviation, ie EST; and if you have those values stored in an array with the strings you want, you can look them up.

<?php date_default_timezone_set(get_option('timezone_string'));

      echo date('T'); // will give you three-character string like "EST"

      $timezones = array (
          'EST' => 'US/Eastern',
          'CST' => 'US/Central',
          // etc, etc, etc.
          );

      echo $timezones [ date('T') ]; // should be what you want.
 ?>

To add to Bainternet (I am adding this as an answer because I cannot comment -- I have less than 50 points on WP Development stack).

WordPress will only store a timezone string if you select a timezone string in the general settings. UTF selection is where it defaults in the list, but you can scroll way up to timezone strings. If you set a timezone string, both the UTF and the Timezone string will be set. They will be the same (meaning, the UTF gets reset to the new zone when you select a timezone string timezone).

(WordPress 4)

if you need the gmt_offset then

<?php echo get_option('gmt_offset'); ?>

this will give you an integer like 2 or -2.

and if you need the timezone string use

<?php echo get_option('timezone_string'); ?>

this will give you a string like America/Indianapolis