These are the 11 craziest time zone boundaries

Two bad news: since we set the clock to 3 a.m. on Sunday night, we’ve lost an hour of sleep and it’s darker again in the morning. The good news: in the evening it is light longer again.

But what are our little problems on the day of the time change compared to the time zones that always apply and their sometimes strange excesses? We have collected some “special limits” here.

There used to be no time zones. There wasn’t even a clock. But then, with the development of long-distance travel business, the need for “unique time” grew more and more. Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) was introduced on August 2, 1880 at 11:00 am and all places in the British Isles had the same time from now on.

Well, that’s not quite true. Ireland used to have its own time zone, which was 25 minutes and 21 seconds behind GMT. This was withdrawn in 1916. Greenwich Mean Time became the standard. By the way: Greenwich is pronounced «Grenitsch».

Today, the time standard is UTC, Coordinated Universal Time. Based on this, the time zones are calculated worldwide. The GMT is based on the UTC (UTC±0). Other time zones are indicated by GMT/UTC + or – (for example: GMT+1 for Switzerland and GMT+2 for Swiss summer time).

Theoretically, China spans five time zones. However, to promote simplicity and togetherness, “Beijing Time” applies throughout the country, i.e. UTC+8. One of the consequences of this is that in Tibet or the Xinjiang region, the sun does not rise until around 10:00 in winter. An unofficial time was therefore created there, but it was rejected by the Han Chinese living in the area.

But the huge time zone also leads to strange moments internationally. If you cross the border from China to Afghanistan, you have to advance the time by no less than 3.5 hours. At the border triangle Afghanistan/Pakistan/China you can change the time three times (UTC+4.5, UTC+5, UTC+8). However, to be fair, it must be said that this region is practically uninhabited and the country triangle is located on a high peak.

We will stay in the region for a while. Nepal was the only country that did not arrange half an hour, but set the time at UTC+5:45. This is because the Nepal Standard Time meridian is located in Gaurishankhar, a mountain east of Kathmandu. It has been that way since 1986.

If you cross the border into China from Nepal you have to set the clock forward 2:15 hours, if you are traveling to India you have to set the clock back 15 minutes.

Besides Nepal, only the Chatham Islands, which belong to New Zealand, have a time zone with a quarter clock. (UTC+12:45).

Kiribati was well east of the dateline, lagging Australia by about a day as a result. However, as Australia developed into the most important business partner, this meant that requests from Kiribati were sent there on Friday morning, but in Australia it was already Saturday morning and therefore the weekend.

On January 1, 1995, Kiribati crossed the date line. December 31, 1994 did not exist in Kiribati. Because the island nation spans many islands, the date line has a special bulge there. By the way, Hawaii is on the same longitude meridian and has the same time as Kiribati – just one day later.

By the way: for the same reason as Kiribati, Samoa also jumped to the “Australian side” in 2011. American Samoa, 70 kilometers to the east, however, remained on the ‘American side’.

We stay at the dateline for a while, but travel further north to the Diomedes Islands. The small group of islands in the Bering Strait is located between Russia and the US. The western island (Big Diomedes Island) belongs to Russia, while the Small Diomedes Island, about four kilometers further east, belongs to the US. In addition to the nations, the date line also separates the two islands, which are a visual distance from each other.

But they are separated by 21 hours. So if Monday is noon (UTC+12) on the Russian island, the island neighbors on the US side are still enjoying Sunday afternoon (3 p.m., UTC-9).

21 hours time difference is of course not the greatest possible. This is not – as expected – 24 hours, but 26 hours.

This difference exists between the Line Islands, which belong to Kiribati (UTC+14, with equally beautiful place names on the Christmas Islands as Kiritimati, London, Paris, Poland or Banana) and the Baker Islands (UTC-12).

The two islands are just over 2,000 kilometers apart (roughly equivalent to Bern – St. Petersburg). But where the clock on the uninhabited Baker Islands is 11 p.m. on Saturday night, it is already 1 a.m. on Monday on the Line Islands.

The consequence of the maximum time difference of more than 24 hours: three different calendar days can exist simultaneously worldwide.

So if it’s 11:30 AM (UTC+1) on Saturday here in Switzerland, the clocks in Kiritimati in Kiribati’s Christmas Islands are already showing 12:30 AM (UTC+14) on Sunday, and in American Samoa it’s still 11:30 PM (UTC) on Friday. 11). ).

As we’ve already learned, some countries are too big to be in one time zone. But of course it is more complicated than that. A time zone border runs through nine US states. For example, in Indiana, 12 of 92 counties are Central Time (UTC-6) and the rest are Eastern Time (UTC-5).

Of the twelve counties, six are in the northwest and are based on the city of Chicago in the neighboring state of Illinois, the other six are in the southwest around the city of Evansville.

But things get really strange in Arizona. As you can see in the map above, there appear to be two time zones. However, the difference here is only during the daylight saving time (DST) phase. As with daylight saving time, the days get longer in the evening. However, Arizona is one of the few states that generally does not observe daylight saving time.

This, in turn, does not apply to the Navajo Nations Reservation, an area about twice the size of Switzerland where the clocks change every time. But that is not everything. The Hopi Reservation exists within the Navajo Nations Reservation, which in turn does not observe daylight saving time. And this Hopi reservation on the one hand has an exclave in the Navajo Nations reservation, on the other hand it encloses an exclave of the Navajo Nations reservation. It looks like this and is quite complicated time wise:

If you take a 4.5 hour round trip by car from Flagstaff through Tuba City, Shongopovi and Winslow back to Flagstaff, you would have to change the clock six times during this trip.

Daylight saving time also complicates life in Australia. Basically Australia has three time zones: UTC+8, UTC+9:30 and UTC+10. There are also time zones from outside areas, such as Lord Howe Island (UTC+10:30), but we’ll focus on the continental part here.

However, two time zones are added in the summer. Because three states set daylight saving time. In South Australia this is UTC+10:30, the southeastern states – including the major cities of Melbourne and Sydney – set their clocks at UTC+11. So if you then need to be at Currumbin Beach (Queensland) at 2pm and depart from Tweed Heads (New South Wales), you need to leave at 2.45pm and you should be able to complete the 15 minute journey again at 2pm. . .

It also gets interesting further north. The Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador actually works according to UTC-4. However, the island of Newfoundland sets its clocks to UTC-3:30.

But not only the island, but also the easternmost tip of mainland Labrador. L’Anse au Clair and Norman Bay also put the clock forward half an hour there. And yes, the island of St-Pierre and Miquelon, near Newfoundland follows UTC-4:30.

This brings us to those countries that are half an hour apart and have a deviation of xx:30 from UTC. These include: Iran, Afghanistan, India, Sri Lanka and Myanmar. Venezuela is no longer in this club. The country set its clocks back half an hour in 2007, but reverted to UTC-4 in 2016. All countries are free to choose their time zones. The decision is usually related to more sunlight in the evenings. For example, India would save large amounts of electricity thanks to half an hour.

Finally, a small anecdote that these large time differences do not always exist somewhere between two South Sea islands or on any Himalayan peaks and are therefore hardly noticeable anyway.

Anyone partying at the legendary Sunset Discotheque (UTC-3) in Arica, Chile’s northernmost city, can cross the border into Peru shortly after New Year’s Eve and reach Tacna in under an hour. There the clocks are set back two hours (UTC-5). New Year’s Eve can be celebrated twice. For example with pisco sour.

This article was first published as part of the Beijing 2022 Olympic Games and has since been slightly edited for the time change.