What does the time zone depend on? Time zones, GMT, UTC, CDT. Local time. Standard time
From the moment the theory of the sphericity of the Earth and its rotation around the Sun and its own axis ceased to be disputed, it became clear that the entire surface of our planet cannot be illuminated by sunlight at the same time. The time of day changes on the earth's surface consistently and gradually (which, in fact, is a change in time zone). Astronomical time depends on the moment at which the Sun is at its zenith, and this does not happen simultaneously at different points on the earth.
In the old days, there was no problem with the astronomical difference in time of day. In any populated area of the world, time was determined by the Sun: when it is at the highest point, it is noon. Initially, the main city clock was synchronized with this moment. No one thought about any time zone. And no one was particularly worried about the fact that between several fairly close cities the time difference could be 15 minutes.
However, under the influence of technological progress, times and life have changed. “Discord” over time became a real headache, in particular for those who used railway transport. Since standard time zones did not yet exist, to accurately comply with the schedule it was necessary to move the chronometer hand by 4 minutes at the intersection of each meridian. It’s simply impossible to keep track of this!
The railway workers were faced with an even more difficult problem - dispatch services could not really calculate the time the train was at a specific point in the movement. And this already smacked not only of delays, but of collisions and train wrecks.
The solution has been found - the creation of time zones
The idea of bringing order to time synchronization first came to the mind of the Englishman William Hyde Wollaston, better known for his discoveries in the field of metal chemistry. The solution was very simple - the chemist proposed establishing a single time zone throughout the UK - according to the Greenwich meridian. Railway workers immediately seized on this idea, and already in 1840 they began to switch to a single “London” time. In 1852, they began to regularly transmit precise time signals by telegraph.
However, the whole country switched to Greenwich Time only in 1880, when the corresponding law was passed.
The English idea was almost immediately adopted by the Americans. However, there was one catch - the US territory is many times larger than the British Isles, and it is simply impossible for the states to introduce a single time zone throughout the country. Therefore, in 1883, the country was divided into 4 zones, in which the time differed by an hour from the neighboring one. This is how, in fact, the first four time zones appeared - Pacific, Eastern, Mountain and Central.
Even though the railroads were already using standard time, many cities refused to adjust their clocks to comply with the new decree. Detroit was the last to do this in 1916.
Even at the dawn of the time zone system, the “father” of Canadian railways, Sanford Fleming, began to propagate the theory that it was necessary to divide the entire planet into 24 time zones. The idea was rejected out of hand by politicians and even scientists; it was considered a utopia.
However, already in 1884, at a special international conference in Washington, the division of the Earth into 24 belts did occur. However, it must be said that some countries voted against this decision, in particular, the Russian representative, the head of the Pulkovo Observatory, Struve. We only joined the world time system in 1919.
Time zones of Russia
The image below shows the current map of time zones in Russia:
Standard time is a system of counting time based on dividing the Earth's surface into 24 time zones, every 15° in longitude. Time within the same time zone is considered the same. In 1884, at the International Conference it was decided to apply this system. In accordance with the international agreement of 1883, the prime ("zero") meridian is considered to be the one that passes through the Greenwich Observatory in the suburbs of London. Local Greenwich Time (GMT), agreed to be called Universal Time or "World Time"
On the territory of Russia, since March 28, 2010, there are 9 time zones (before that there were 11 time zones). The Samara region and Udmurtia switched to Moscow time (second time zone). Kemerovo region (Kuzbass) - to Omsk (MCK+3). Kamchatka Territory and Chukotka - to Magadanskoye (MSK+8). In these five subjects of the Federation, on March 28, 2010, the clock hands were not moved.
Two belts are being abolished - the third (Samara, MSK+1) and the eleventh (Kamchatka, MSK+9). There are 9 of them in total, and the maximum time range in our country is reduced from 10 to 9 hours.
In Russia, since March 2011, after the transition to summer time, the clock hands are no longer moved throughout the year.
In 2012, the advantages of permanent winter time over summer are being discussed again, at all levels, and therefore a transition (this fall) to permanent, year-round winter time is possible.
Stable time is better for health. In the autumn-spring off-season, the body does not have to particularly adjust its biorhythms. Technical services and transport workers now do not have to, as before, when changing the hands of the clock, reconfigure equipment and change schedules.
Time zone of Moscow, according to stable time: +4 (GMT + 4:00)
The boundaries of zone time are drawn taking into account physical and geographical features - along large rivers, watersheds, as well as along interstate and administrative boundaries. States can change these boundaries within the country.
The international system U T C (World Time is used; it is designated UTC/GMT or, which is the same thing, UTC), as well as the difference between local and Moscow time - MSK. The plus sign means east, the minus sign means west of the starting point.
The transition to summer time (one hour forward) and winter time (one hour back) occurs in spring and autumn, respectively. This rule applies in the European Union, Egypt, Turkey, New Zealand... The dates and procedure for transfer may vary slightly in terms of timing. Most countries have abandoned the autumn-spring change of clock hands: Russia and Belarus (since 2011), Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, India, China, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan...
World time - UTC/GMT - the value of Greenwich Mean Time (G M T) is equal to "Universal Coordinated Time" (U T C) with an accuracy of one second - GMT=UTC). The name U T C, over time, will completely replace the term “Greenich time”
Rice. 2 Map - World time zones and their offsets from UTC/GMT (Greenwich Time)
Table - time zones of cities around the world (UTC/GMT), in the summer
| Kamchatka | UTC/GMT+12 |
| Magadan, Sakhalin. | UTC/GMT+12 |
| Vladivostok | UTC/GMT+11 |
| Yakutsk | UTC/GMT+10 |
| Irkutsk | UTC/GMT+9 |
| Krasnoyarsk | UTC/GMT+8 |
| Omsk | UTC/GMT+7 |
| Yekaterinburg | UTC/GMT+6 |
| Moscow Moscow time, Sochi city | UTC/GMT+4 |
| Minsk "Eastern European Time" (EET) | UTC/GMT+3 |
| Paris "Central European Summer Time" (CEST - Central Europe Summer Time Zone) | UTC/GMT+2 |
| London Greenwich Time / Western European Time (WET) | UTC/GMT+1 |
| "Mid Atlantic Time" | UTC/GMT-1 |
| Argentina, Buenos Aires | UTC/GMT-2 |
| Canada "Atlantic Time" | UTC/GMT-3 |
| USA - New York "Eastern Time" (EDT - US Eastern Daylight Time Zone) | UTC/GMT-4 |
| Chicago (Chicago) "Central Time" (CDT - US Central Daylight Time) | UTC/GMT-5 |
| Denver (MDT - US Mountain Daylight Time) | UTC/GMT-6 |
| USA, Los Angeles, San Francisco "Pacific Daylight Time" (PDT - Pacific Daylight Time) | UTC/GMT-7 |
An example of winter and summer time designation: EST / EDT (Eastern Standard / Daylight Time Zone).
If, somewhere, winter time is considered standard, then it can be abbreviated, for example: ET, CT, MT, PT
Table - time zones of cities and regions in Russia, since 2011.
Local time difference shown:
MSK+3 - with Moscow;
UTC+7 - with Coordinated Universal Time (UTC = GMT)
| Name winter / summer |
Bias relatively Moscow time |
Offset relative to UTC (World Time) |
|
| USZ1 | Kaliningrad time - the first time zone | MSK-1 | UTC+3:00 |
| MSK/MSD MSST/MSDT |
Moscow time | MSK | UTC+4:00 |
| SAMT/SAMST | Samara | MSK | UTC+H:00 |
| YEKT/YEKST | Yekaterinburg time | MSK+2 | UTC+6:00 |
| OMST / OMSST | Omsk time | MSK+3 | UTC+7:00 |
| NOVT/NOVST | Novosibirsk, Novokuznetsk Kemerovo, Tomsk. Barnaul |
MSK+3 | UTC+7:00 |
| KRAT/KRAST | Krasnoyarsk time Krasnoyarsk, Norilsk |
MSK+4 | UTC+8:00 |
| IRKT/IRKST | Irkutsk time | MSK+5 | UTC+9:00 |
| YAKT/YAKST | Yakut time | MSK+6 | UTC+10:00 |
| VLAT/VLAST | Vladivostok time | MSK+7 | UTC+11:00 |
| MAGT / MAGST | Magadan time Magadan |
MSK+8 | UTC+12:00 |
| PETT/PETST | Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky | MSK+8 | UTC+I2:00 |
Note: MSK = MSD (Moscow Summer Time) all year round
Terms and definitions
Switching to Daylight Saving (Summer) Time (DST - Daylight Saving (Summer) Time) - moving the clock hand forward one hour, which was done annually on the last Sunday of March in order to get an additional hour during daylight hours, to save electricity (for lighting, etc. ). The return to winter time was carried out recently. Sunday in October. These transitions affected the biorhythms of the human body, his well-being, and it took a week of adaptation to get used to it. Manipulation of clock hands is a common reason why workers and employees are late for work.
The prime (prime) meridian is the Greenwich meridian with a geographic longitude of 0°00"00", dividing the globe into the western and eastern hemispheres. Passes through the former Greenwich Observatory (in the suburbs of London)
GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) - "Greenwich Time"- on the Greenwich meridian. Determined from astronomical observations of the daily motion of stars. It is unstable (within a second per year) and depends on the constant change in the speed of rotation of the Earth, the movement of geographic poles along its surface and the nutation of the planet’s rotation axis. Greenwich (astronomical) time is close in meaning to UTC (atomic time), and will still be used as its synonym. Another name is "Zulu Time"
In Russian-language meteorology, GMT is designated as SGV (Greenwich Mean / or Geographical / Time)
GMT= UTC (accurate to 1 second)
Time zone (Standard Time Zone) - difference with World Time UTC/GMT (example: UTC/GMT+4 - fourth time zone, east of Greenwich)
H:mm:ss - 24-hour format (example: 14:25:05). Minutes and seconds - with leading zeros
h:mm:ss - 12-hour format (example: 02:25:05 PM - "two and a half hours in the afternoon" - 14:25:05). Minutes and seconds - with leading zeros
AM - designation of time before noon in a 12-hour format (short version - "A")
PM - designation of time after noon in a 12-hour format
Universal Time UT (Universal Time) is the average solar time at the Greenwich meridian, determined from astronomical observations of the daily movements of stars. Its refined values are UT0, UT1, UT2
UT0 - time at the instantaneous Greenwich meridian, determined from the instantaneous position of the Earth's poles
UT1 - time at the Greenwich mean meridian, corrected for the movement of the earth's poles
UT2 - time, taking into account changes in the speed of rotation of the Earth
TAI - time according to atomic clocks (International Atomic Time, since 1972). Stable, reference, never translated. Time and frequency standard
Time in the GPS navigation system has been in effect since January 1980. No amendments are introduced to it. It is ahead of UTC time by one and a half dozen seconds.
UTC (from English Universal Time Coordinated)- Coordinated Universal Time for the coordinated distribution of standard frequencies and time signals over radio, television and the Internet - "World Time". Its synonym: "Universal time zone"
The UTC time scale has been introduced since 1964 to harmonize the values of UT1 (astronomical measurements) and TAI (atomic clocks).
Unlike Greenwich Mean Time, UTC is set using atomic clocks.
The speed of rotation of the earth is slowing down, and therefore, corrections are introduced into the UTC scale regularly, after a year or two or three, on June 30 or December 31 (leap seconds) so that U T C is no more than a second ( more precisely, 0.9 s) differed from astronomical time (determined by the movement of the Sun), as UT1 lagged behind by a second. This international rule was adopted in 1972.
Time ratio in 2009: UTC (universal) lags behind TAI (atomic) - by 35s. Time in the GPS navigation system is 15 seconds ahead of UTC (counting since 1980, the difference is increasing) T glonass = Tutc + 3 hours (corrected, so the discrepancy between them does not exceed 1 ms.)
Precise time signals (for clock synchronization) are transmitted via radio channels, television, and the Internet - in the UTC system. More precisely, you can place it, for example, on the Mayak radio signal, but only on the long-wave or medium-wave range (on the “ground-surface wave”). On the VHF/FM radio band the signal may be delayed up to several seconds from the true one.
In watches with automatic synchronization (English Radio controlled), time correction occurs from base stations, on ultra-long waves. This system was developed in Europe.
Exact local time service numbers in Russian cities 100 - Moscow Voronezh Cheboksary Chelyabinsk 060 - Bryansk Kaliningrad Krasnodar Murmansk St. Petersburg Samara Mobile operators do not have such a service, since a mobile phone is not limited geographically and can work not only in a specific city, but also in roaming .
UTC time is not converted neither in winter nor in summer, therefore, for those places where there is a conversion to summer time, the offset relative to UTC changes (in Moscow, before the abolition of winter time in 2011, the difference was: in winter - UTC+3, in summer - UTC+4).
Standard abbreviations for the names of calendar months and days of the week in English (used in RSS and others): January February March April May June July August September October November December Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun
GMT - Greenwich Mean Time (or Geographical) Time (English Greenwich Mean Time, GMT) - the time of the meridian passing through the old Greenwich Observatory, near London. Used to indicate time on weather maps. Synonyms for GMT are GMT and UTC.
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Literature
“Time and calendar” - M.: Nauka. 1989
Global (satellite) navigation systems GLONASS (Russia), GPS (USA), Galileo (European Union) - make it possible to determine, using navigator devices, including portable ones, the current location (coordinates), trajectory and speed of movement of objects in any point on our planet and in near-Earth space.
Depending on the method of operation and purpose, satellite GPS (Global Positioning System) navigators can be used for automobiles (car navigators), portable, marine, etc. The most common imported ones are Garmin, Mio, etc. There are completely autonomous configuration options - with charging batteries from solar panels or miniature thermoelectric generators (thermocouples). The navigation system is built into modern communicators, smartphones and cell phones, allowing you to receive not only the geographic coordinates of the receiver’s location, but also the system time with an accuracy of a fraction of a microsecond.
Russian GLONASS has been operating since the mid-90s. The orbital constellation includes more than two dozen operating satellites. The system operates throughout Russia. Since 2009, transport, including passenger transport, has been massively equipped with this system.
Navigators are produced in Russia (Glospace SGK-70 and others) that can work simultaneously with several navigation systems - GLONASS, GPS, Galileo.
Glospace supports the SMILINK system (shows traffic jams) and can create detour routes. Signals can be received from several satellite systems at once.
G P S maps - electronic maps for navigators and other mobile devices (communicators, PDAs / PDAs, smartphones, etc.) with GPS function.
Recently we have witnessed experiments with time. Either we move the clocks twice every year, then we abandon winter time in favor of summer time, then vice versa. At the same time, there are always dissatisfied people. Some don’t like the fact that twice a year we either lose or gain an extra hour, others don’t like that in winter it gets light late or dark early. The project of switching to winter time is being discussed. And many seem to be completely confused about what time is true for our country. Let's figure it out.
Due to the rotation of the Earth around its axis, in different places on the globe, located in different meridians, the time is different at the same moment. This is local time. So, when it is 12 noon in Moscow, in Saratov it should be 12.34, in Omsk - 2.23, in Irkutsk - 4.37, in Vladivostok - 6.17 pm; at - 11.31, in Warsaw - 10.54, in London - 9.27, etc. Thus, using local time is inconvenient.
National time
In the 19th century, with the development of railway transport, the advent of the telegraph and telephone, many countries began to introduce national time, which was the same throughout the entire territory of the state. And in 1848, Greenwich Time was introduced in England - at the Greenwich Observatory near London. In 1866, Roman time was introduced in Italy; a little later in Germany - Berlin time. In the Russian Empire, Pulkovo time was used on railways - according to the Pulkovo Observatory near St. Petersburg.
Standard time
By the end of the 19th century, when international traffic increased, it became clear that national time was inconvenient to use. In 1879, the head of railway traffic in Canada, Sir Sandford Fleming(1827-1915) proposed dividing the globe along meridians into 24 equal zones, according to the number of hours in a day. Within the belt, the time of the central meridian passing through the middle of this belt was accepted. Thus, each zone includes 15 degrees of longitude, the time between adjacent zones differs by 1 hour. The meridian passing through the Greenwich Observatory began to be considered the zero (primary) meridian. The I belt lies between 7.5° and 22.5° east longitude from Greenwich, the II belt lies between 22.5° and 37.5°, the III belt lies between 37.5° and 52.5°, the IV belt lies between 52.5° and 67.5°, V zone - between 67.5° and 82.5°, etc. The boundaries of time zones are drawn taking into account the administrative division, so that the administrative unit (country, republic, region) is in one time zone.
There are 11 time zones in our country. is located in the II time zone, the Chukotka Peninsula is in the XII. At one time, for convenience, time zones XI and XII were combined, so there were 10 zones. As a result of the latest reform in 2011, the number of time zones in Russia was reduced, which displeased many people.
Some countries have abandoned different time zones on their territory. So, in, which is located in five time zones, there is a single Chinese standard time, which differs from Greenwich by 8 hours (UTC+8).
Maternity, winter and summer time
Maternity time – time established by government authorities; means "standard time plus one hour." At the same time, the formal numbering of time zones is preserved. So, Moscow is located in time zone II. In accordance with maternity time, another hour is added, i.e. its time corresponds to the III time zone, but formally it belongs to the II.
Daylight saving time is time shifted 1 hour ahead of the time in a given time zone. Thus, in our country, taking into account maternity time, the time is shifted 2 hours ahead of standard time.
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For the first time, a New Zealand entomologist proposed a system for switching to daylight saving time. George Vernon Hudson(1867-1946) in 1895. In the first half of the twentieth century, many European countries and the United States began to change their clocks twice a year.
There is still no consensus among scientists regarding the harm to health during the transition from winter to summer time and back. In addition, it is calculated that the effective switching zone lies within latitudes from 30° to 55°. Some countries at different times refused the transition, preferring to change the operating hours of enterprises in summer and winter. For example, in Japan, examinations in educational institutions cannot begin earlier than two hours after sunrise.
Calculation of time in Russia
For the center of Moscow, local (solar) time is UTC+02:30:48. It operated until 1919. In 1919, the Council of People's Commissars introduced a system of international time zones. Moscow was assigned to the II time zone, although it is located on the border of the II and III time zones (37°30’E), usually in such cases it is assigned to a more eastern zone. Daylight saving time was also introduced, the hands were moved 1 hour forward (UTC+3). In 1930, in the USSR, by resolution (decree) of the Council of People's Commissars, maternity time was introduced for more complete use of daylight hours during the working day and saving electricity; The hands were moved forward 1 hour. Those. maternity time – time zone plus 1 hour. For Moscow it turns out +3 hours from Greenwich time.
In 1981, summer time was introduced in the USSR, then an attempt was made to abandon it in 1991-1992. On the last Sunday in March, the hands were moved 1 hour ahead compared to maternity time. Those. for Moscow UTC+4. Thus, winter time corresponds to maternity time, i.e. standard time + 1 hour, UTC+3, summer time – standard time +2 hours, UTC+4.
In 2011, President Medvedev canceled the transition to winter time, the country remained in summer time. At the same time, for the convenience of a number of structures, time zones were reduced. So, if earlier the time difference between Moscow was 9 hours (many remember “It’s 15 o’clock in Moscow, midnight in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky”), now it’s 8 hours. As a result, it got dark early there in winter. For Muscovites, summer time also caused a lot of grief in winter: in December it only got light at 10 am.
Time zones:
UTC−12 - Date Line
UTC−11 - American Samoa
UTC−10 - Hawaii
UTC−9 - Alaska
UTC−8 - North American Pacific Time (USA and Canada)
UTC−7 - Mountain Time (USA and Canada), Mexico (Chihuahua, La Paz, Mazatlan)
UTC−6 - Central Time (USA and Canada), Central American Time, Mexico (Guadalajara, Mexico City, Monterrey)
UTC−5 - North American Eastern Time (USA and Canada), South American Pacific Time (Bogota, Lima, Quito)
UTC−4:30 - Caracas
UTC−4 - Atlantic Time (Canada), La Paz, Santiago)
UTC−3:30 - Newfoundland
UTC−3 - South American Eastern Time (Brasilia, Buenos Aires, Georgetown), Greenland
UTC−2 - Mid-Atlantic Time
UTC−1 - Azores, Cape Verde
UTC+0 - Western European Time (Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London, Casablanca, Monrovia)
UTC+1 - Central European Time (Amsterdam, Berlin, Bern, Brussels, Copenhagen, Madrid, Paris, Rome, Stockholm, Belgrade, Bratislava, Budapest, Warsaw, Ljubljana, Sarajevo, Skopje, Zagreb) Western Central African Time
UTC+2 - Eastern European time (winter, summer - UTC+3; Athens, Bucharest, Vilnius, Kyiv, Chisinau, Riga, Sofia, Tallinn, Tiraspol, Helsinki), Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Libya, Turkey, South Africa
UTC+3 - Kaliningrad time (Kaliningrad), Belarus time (), East African time (Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Tanzania, Somalia, Uganda, Sudan, Madagascar), Iraq, Yemen, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar
UTC+3:30 - Tehran time
UTC+4 - Moscow time, Transcaucasian countries, United Arab Emirates, Oman
UTC+4:30 - Afghanistan
UTC+5 - Western Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan
UTC+5:30 - India, Sri Lanka
UTC+5:45 - Nepal
UTC+6 - Yekaterinburg time, central and eastern parts of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Bangladesh, Bhutan time (Bhutan)
UTC+6:30 - Myanmar
UTC+7 - Omsk time, Novosibirsk, Kemerovo, Southeast Asia (Bangkok, Jakarta, Hanoi)
UTC+8 - Krasnoyarsk time, Ulaanbaatar, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Western Australian time (Perth)
UTC+9 - Irkutsk time, Korea, Japan
UTC+9:30 - Central Australian Time (Adelaide, Darwin)
UTC+10 - Yakut time, Eastern Australian time (Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney), Tasmania, Western Pacific time (Guam, Port Moresby)
UTC+11 - Vladivostok time, Central Pacific time (Solomon Islands, New Caledonia)
UTC+12 - Magadan time, Marshall Islands, Fiji, New Zealand
UTC+13 - Samoa, Tonga
UTC+14 - Line Islands (Kiribati)
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Planet Earth, rotating around its axis, is illuminated by the Sun at different times in different areas, so noon occurs at its own time for everyone. In order to take these time differences into account, time zones were invented.
How many time zones are there in the world?
There are two concepts of time zones:
- Geographical. These are conditional stripes - meridians that have width and divide the earth's surface. How many time zones are there on Earth? There are 24 of them in total. The zero meridian is considered to be the one passing through the London Greenwich Observatory.
- Administrative. They are also called time zones. Each of them has its own standard time established by law. These are areas of the earth's surface formed taking into account the rotation of the planet Earth and having the same local time. They differ next from the previous one by an hour. How many time zones are there in the world? There are 24 of them, respectively. They practically coincide with geographic time zones. And the starting point is also the Greenwich meridian. And time within its zone is usually called “world time”. The countdown goes from west to east.
Time zone boundaries run along major rivers, administrative and interstate boundaries.
Changeover between summer and winter time
There is also a system for changing between summer and winter time. In the first case - an hour ahead, and in the second - an hour ago. European Union countries, as well as Türkiye, Egypt and many others use it. And Russia and most CIS countries have recently abandoned this system. This is due to the fact that there is a lot of evidence of its harmful effects on human health.
Stability of time is much more useful; it does not harm the human biological clock. There is no need to adapt to a new sleep-wake schedule. In addition, there is no need to change schedules and reconfigure equipment for enterprises and transport services.
History of the introduction of time zones
Until the mid-19th century, each large city lived according to its own time. And the villages and small towns located next to it were equal to it. Back then we lived according to the Sun. In those days, there was no such high-speed transport as trains and planes. They rode horses and carts, and such transport cannot travel such a long distance to cover several time zones. This means that determining time by shadow was acceptable.
When the railroads began to be built and the first trains were launched, everything immediately changed. Trains traveled so quickly that it became difficult to create accurate timetables for them. It was difficult to find out when each of them would arrive at one or another station, significantly distant from the point of departure. When sending telegrams, it was difficult to calculate the time so that the message arrived on time.
European countries solved this problem in their own way. They all began to live according to the same time. It was tied to the solar time of the main city. The railways and telegraphs of the Russian Empire operated according to St. Petersburg time. And individual cities continued to count down their numbers.
The countries of the New World, as America was called at that time, were plunged into complete confusion. All the railway companies there worked on their own time. And each of the states lived in its own way. As a result, big problems arose in those cities where the railway lines of different companies ran.
The solution to the problem appeared later. Canadian engineer Sandford Fleming worked on the railroad all his life. He laid lines between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and, by coincidence, missed the train in 1976. After this, the engineer decided to definitely find a solution to the problem of counting time throughout the world.
During a meeting of the Royal Canadian Institute, which took place on February 8, 1879, Sandford Fleming proposed dividing the entire surface of the globe into 24 zones. This idea was not taken seriously. But he continued to promote it until 1884. The International Meridian Conference took place in October. Representatives from 25 countries attended. The Washington Convention on Time Zones and Universal Time was adopted there. The concept of standard time was introduced. The Greenwich meridian was taken as the zero meridian. It became the starting point for longitude on sea and geographical maps. But despite Fleming’s repeated proposals to consolidate the division into time zones in this convention, this issue was not even put to a vote.
The process of introducing time zones began with the United States and Canada, and several decades passed until all countries in the world adopted standard time. This was completed in the 20s of the XX century. The reason for this protracted process was the outburst of signs of self-government in some countries and cities. Now it seems funny, but then people fought for the fact that solar time is much more convenient and more accurate than standard time. Despite the difference in minutes, the heads of cities did not want to switch to it.
Also, the boundaries of the meridians have been moved many times. There have been cases where some cities were divided into two time zones and had a time difference of one hour.
After the collapse of the USSR, the newly formed republics spent a long time deciding which time zone they would belong to and whether they would make the transition to summer/winter time.
Time zones of countries
Let's find out how many time zones the largest countries in the world are divided into.
Oddly enough, France covers the maximum number of time zones. The country itself is located within one meridian, but together with its islands it occupies 12 time zones.
The United States of America occupies 11 time zones.
The Russian Federation is currently located in 9 time zones. You can read more about this in the article on our website about how many time zones there are in Russia ().
Version of the functionality "Checking time and determining the time zone of a workstation" for the end user. Theory on Earth's time zones. Formation of administrative time zones. Time zone maps. This simple functionality will allow you to quickly determine whether the date and time is set correctly on the user's workstation, as well as determine the time zone (time zone).
If you want to know your time zone, check the radio button "yes" and then click the "Run process" button.
The results obtained can be seen in the table below.
The process has begun... Please wait...
Map of time zones (to get a better image, click on the map anywhere):
A little theory on the topic of time zones and time zones.
A geographic time zone is a conventional strip on the earth's surface exactly 15° wide (± 7.5° relative to the middle meridian). The Greenwich meridian is considered the middle meridian of the zero time zone.
Administrative time zone (time zone) is a section of the earth's surface on which a certain standard time is established.
Here we mean and use administrative time zones, which can differ significantly from geographical ones.
The formation of administrative time zones (time zones, time zones, time zones) is associated with the goal of identifying territories with approximately the same local time so that the time differences between them are multiples of one hour. It was agreed that there should be 24 administrative time zones and each of them should roughly coincide with a geographic time zone. The starting point was the Greenwich meridian, (prime meridian, middle meridian) of the zero time zone.
Nowadays, time is set using Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which was introduced to replace Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). The UTC scale is based on the uniform atomic time scale (TAI) and is more convenient for civilian use. Time zones around the globe are expressed as positive and negative offsets from UTC. (Negative offsets for time zones west of the prime meridian, positive offsets to the east.)
The modern time zone system is based on Coordinated Universal Time, on which the time of all time zones depends. In order not to enter local time for each degree (or each minute) of longitude, the Earth's surface is conventionally divided into 24 time zones. When moving from one time zone to another, the values of minutes and seconds (time) are preserved, only the value of the hours changes. There are some countries in which local time differs from world time not only by a whole number of hours, but also by an additional 30 or 45 minutes. These time zones are not standard time zones.
Theoretically, the 24 time zones of the globe should be limited by meridians passing 7 ° 30 "east and west of the middle meridian of each zone, and universal time operates around the Greenwich meridian. But in reality, to maintain a uniform time within the same administrative or natural unit, zone boundaries are shifted relative to the meridians; in some places some time zones even “disappear”, getting lost between neighboring ones.
At the North and South Poles, the meridians converge at one point, and therefore the concept of time zones, and at the same time local time, loses its meaning there.
Time difference, time zones and others time paradoxes can be quite funny. You can go to or in just one step! How? You will find the answer to this question in this article.
In the Pacific Ocean, along the 180th meridian there is a so-called . If you cross this line from east to west, then you will immediately find yourself in tomorrow, but if in the other direction, then you will find yourself in the past. This is how it is possible travel back in time 24 hours forward or backward. At this point, the present is not a very precise concept of time.
Fact 2: Longest time step.
The Afghan-Chinese border is famous for its time difference regarding the countries shared by it. If you are in Afghanistan and crossed the border, that is, into China, then you can and even need to move the clock hands 3.5 hours forward! This could be a three and a half hour step!
There are many legends about the Himalayas and this place is considered mystical by many. Let's look at this mountain range in time, that is, how it changes over 1000 kilometers. If a traveler decides to overcome them, then he must set the time as many as 6 times: 15 minutes forward when crossing the Indo-Nepal border, then 15 minutes back when crossing the Nepal-Indian border, 150 minutes ahead on the Indo-Chinese border, and 150 minutes ahead on the Chinese-Chinese border. On the Bhutanese border 2 hours back, then back again by half an hour (Bhutan-Indian border), and finally on the Indo-Myanmar border - an hour ahead.
Fact 4: The Land of the Rising Sun is not Japan at all.
Many people believe that the Japanese are the first to greet the sunrise, but they are not! Our compatriots are the first to greet the dawn. There the dawn can be observed an hour earlier than in the so-called land of the rising sun , even the so-called Greenwich time calculation will help us verify this.
Fact 5: Back in time - from Monday to Sunday.
Do you want to go on a day off (Sunday) again if it’s Monday? Well, all we need is to be in the right place and time, and a 15-20 minute boat ride. The islands of Ratmanov (Russia) and Kruzenshtern (USA) are separated by only 4 kilometers, but according to Greenwich they are very separated by time - for a whole 21 hours. Here’s an example of a clear situation: On Ratmanov Island now everyone is working – it’s Monday afternoon there, but in the USA on Kruzenshtern Island everyone is still resting – it’s only three o’clock on Sunday.
Fact 6: Mirror time in England and India.
It's quite funny to find out the time in India. In India, the difference with Greenwich is 5.5 hours. You can use this knowledge if you are now in England: just turn the clock upside down and you can find out what time it is in India now.
These are the ones that exist time paradoxes conditional time zones and state policies.
Time zones. In order to regulate differences in time resulting from the rotation of the Earth around its axis, the globe is conventionally divided into 24 time zones . Without them, no one would be able to answer the question: “ What time is it in other parts of the world?" The boundaries of these belts approximately coincide with lines of longitude. In each time zone, people set their clocks according to their own local time, depending on the location on Earth. The gap between the belts is 15°. In the USA, Greenwich Mean Time was introduced in 1884, which is calculated from the meridian passing through the Greenwich Observatory.
The 180° lines of east and west longitude coincide. This general line is called International Date Line. Time at points on Earth located west of this line is 12 hours ahead compared to time at points east of this line. The time in these neighboring zones is the same, but traveling east takes you to yesterday, traveling west takes you to tomorrow.
Therefore, in the logbook of a ship that sails from west to east, one day must be counted twice. And a ship moving from east to west, as it were, “skips” one day, after December 31 it immediately ends up on January 2.
Local time. Standard Time
Solar time at points located on the same meridian is called local . Due to the fact that at every moment of the day it is different on all meridians, it is inconvenient to use. Therefore, according to international agreement, it was introduced standard time . The entire surface of the Earth was divided along the meridians into 24 zones of 15° longitude. Belt (same within each zone) time – this is the local time of the median meridian of a given zone. Zero belt is a belt whose median meridian is the Greenwich (prime) meridian. From there, the belts are counted to the east.
Time in Russia is regulated by the Federal Law “On the Calculation of Time”, in accordance with which it is established 11 time zones. Moscow time (MSK, MSK) “corresponds to the third time zone in the national time scale of the Russian Federation UTC (SU) +3.” Eleven time zones, from 1 to 11, correspond in international numbering to time zones from 2 to 12. The boundaries of time zones run along the borders of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation; each subject of the federation is included in one time zone, with the exception of Yakutia, the territory of which is located in three time zones (MSK+6, MSK+7, MSK+8). Daylight saving time does not apply (seasonal clock change was abolished in 2011).
Table. Time zones of Russia (2018)
