Top 5 Countries With The Most Time Zones

Time zones are one crucial system that measures time all over the world. It is used to tell the standard time for a particular place which is essential for social, commercial, and legislative purposes.

Time zones follow the borders of the region and country as it is much easier to determine other time zones in the vicinity. The local time zone is defined by its difference or offsets from the world standard that is known as Coordinated Universal Time(UTC) which can be stated as UTC - or UTC +.

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Most of the time zones are offset from UTC through a specialized overall watch whereas the others are offset in 30 or 45 minutes such as UTC -2, UTC + 03:45 or UTC -5:30. There are some countries with only 1 time zone but there are some parts of the world with various time zones.

Here we would like to share with you the top 5 countries with the most time zones in the world.

5. United Kingdom (9 Time Zones)

The UK is the fifth country with the most time zones in the world standing currently at 9 time zones. Despite having 9 time zones, the whole UK land utilizes the same time zone which is UTC +1 BST(British Summer Time).

This means that Edinburgh, Scotland, and London are the same when it comes to time. 8 of the time zones are overseas regions that are under the British Crown but are no longer part of the UK. Such countries include:

1. Pitcairn Islands
2. Cayman Islands
3. Anguilla
4. British Virgin Islands
5. Montserrat
6. Turks and Caicos Islands
7. Bermuda
8. Falkland Islands
9. South Georgia/Sandwich Is.
10. Saint Helena
11. Guernsey
12. Isle of Man
13. Jersey Crown
14. Gibraltar
15. British Indian Ocean Territory

4. Australia (9 Time Zones)

The land far in the south will be Australia which is known to have a large mass of land. Some of the regions in this country include Heard and Mcdonalds Islands, Christmas Island, and Norfolk Islands which are all different time zone of UTC + 05:00, UTC + 07:00, and UTC + 11:00 respectively.

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On the other hand, Australia's mainland operates in the UTC + 08:00 to UTC + 10:00 time zone. There are also other Islands that are often forgotten like Tasmania, Flinders Island, and King Island.

3. Russia (11 Time Zones)

As the biggest country in the world, you would expect it to have many time zones as Russia can be split into 11 different time zones from UTC + 02:00 until UTC + 12:00. This means that the biggest time difference between the regions of Russia will be 10 hours.

However, Daylight Saving Time(DST) is no longer in use in this country. The time zones include Kaliningrad, Moscow, Samara, Yekaterinburg, Omsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Yakutsk, Vladivostok, Magadan, and Kamchatka.

The borders of the time zones were established in 1992 by the federal government of Russia when it splits the country into several regions after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

2. The United States (11 Time Zones)

The United States is the 4th biggest country in the world with respect to land size. This country and its regions are divided into 9 standard time zones according to the law. But there are 2 additional unofficial time zones at present.

The majority of the regions in the US practice Daily Saving Time(DST) for the season of fall, spring, and summer. DST is earlier by 1 hour than real-time so the time of daylight will be much longer.

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The limit of time zone is regulated by the U.S. Department of Transportation with the official keeper time performed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology as well as the Naval Observatory.

9 standard time zones of the US include Atlantic, East, Central, Mountain. Pacific, Alaska, Hawaii, Samoa, and Chamorro. The time difference between Atlantic and Chamorro is 15 hours.

1. France (12 Time Zones)

Some might think that even though it is not among the biggest countries out there, France has the most time zones in the world which is 12. This is because the country has several regions outside of its country.

Different parts of France Metropolitan use either the Central European (UTC + 01:00) or Central European Summer Time  (UTC + 02:00).

Before 1891, all the metropolitan city all over France each have their own individual time zone set based on the local solar time. However, those times were united in 1891 due to complications in the train schedule.

Those times were merged according to the Paris Solar time. In 1911, France utilize GMT + 0 as their official time. In 1940, the country changed its time in the north to GMT + 02:00.

But GMT + 01:00 still remains the official time for France Metropolitan. This means that the time in the regions all over France is the same except for regions outside of its nation.

Source:

• Iluminasi

Also read: History and Evolution of International Calling Codes