Time zone

A time zone is a region that keeps the same standard time. Most time zones differ from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) by a whole number of hours, but not all. India is five and a half hours ahead of UTC, and Nepal is five hours and forty-five minutes ahead.^[1] A visitor flying from India to Nepal must therefore put their watch forward fifteen minutes, which is the only international flight in which jet lag is shorter than the safety announcement.

The most zones

Counting all its overseas territories, scattered across the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans and South America, France covers twelve time zones, more than any other country. At any given moment, it is a different time in different parts of France, all of them official.^[2]

The date line

In 1995 the Pacific nation of Kiribati moved the International Date Line so that the whole country would be on the same day; before that, its eastern and western islands were a whole day apart, and the government offices could only talk to each other on four days of the week. Kiribati's Line Islands are now fourteen hours ahead of UTC, the furthest ahead of anywhere, and are among the first places on Earth to see each new day.

• Most zones: France (12).
• Odd offset: Nepal (+5:45).
• First to reach tomorrow: Kiribati (+14).
• Last to reach it: everyone else, eventually.

See also

• Hour – the usual unit of difference
• Tomorrow – which starts in Kiribati
• Midnight – which happens 24 times a day, somewhere

References

1. Meridian, M. (1999). Forty-Five Minutes. Longitude Press.
2. Overseas, O. (2008). “Twelve at Once”. Geography Notes 12: 1.
3. Dateline, D. (1995/2010). Same Day, Finally. Pacific Books.