How Many World Time Zones?

How Many World Time Zones?

Time Zone 3

Palm Beach, FL. Having just committed to a 3 week trip around the world beginning in Oct, I now find I need yellow fever shots, extra pages added to my passport, country visas. Yikes!

We start in Florida traveling west to Panama, then Easter Island, Fiji, Australia, Bali, India, Kenya, Portugal and then back to Boston. So how do I keep up with the changing time zones? How many time zones even exist in the world and what is a zone?

Well, there are 40 time zones according to one website (37 according to another). With a time zone referring to the Earth’s surface loosely divided by 15 degrees of longitude (not even sure what that means) there are 24 standard zones (see map) with another 16 zones that use 30-45 minute increments after the hour.

The U.S. actually has 9 time zones (yep 9, including Alaska, Hawaii and Samoa). Ok, really? Yet, China has only one time zone for the entire country and then throw in daylight savings time. And how about outer space? The common practice is to use the time zone of the launch site. Wow, this is way too complicated. I am just glad I start and end in the same zone, 40 zones later (or is it 37?).

 

 

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