
Solar time is the formula used to set civil time via UTC.Ī time offset is the amount of time added to or subtracted from UTC.

There are two ways of establishing time on planet Earth - the atomic clock and solar time.Ītomics clocks are complex timekeeping mechanisms run by national governmental agencies and used on specific occasions, technologies, and systems. That is why countries located immediately west of the IDL - Tonga, Samoa, and Kiribati - are the first to celebrate the New Year. IDL is another imaginary line that passes through the middle of the Pacific Ocean and determines where you cross from one day to the next. Nevertheless, many people still use GMT as the time standard for all countries worldwide - for example, GMT+12:00 for New Zealand.īut there's also another important formalism - the International Date Line (IDL). UTC is precisely the same imaginary line defined by GMT at the Prime Meridian, located in the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. It replaced the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) in the late 1960s, even though GMT remains today as a regional time zone at UTC+00:00. The official time standard regulating the world's time and clocks is called Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The Differences Between GMT, UTC, and IDL Take a look at the official world time zone map. So, we all end up getting 24 standard time zones and 14 additional exceptions.Īs a result, local time always depends on what time zone you're in at a given moment.Īs stated above, all nations have specific interests, so the time zone map is not linear as it should be in theory. With the rotation of the Earth, from east to west, each meridian represents one given hour. They're technically named meridians, i.e., imaginary lines that run vertically from the North Pole to the South Pole, each 15 degrees apart. However, in a world with borders, political, geographical, social interests, and lobbies, the officially established time zones make the planet look like a complicated geometrical drawing of longitudinal lines. Ideally, the planet would be divided between 24 identical time zones, each representing one hour of the day.

When you fly between Los Angeles and New York, you must add three hours to your clock upon arriving at your destination.Īnd while someone is waking and getting ready for another working day under sunny skies, another is heading off to bed under the moonlight. As a result, time is always different in various places on the planet. Welcome to the complex world of time zones. All insular territories like Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands have no DST.ĭaylight Saving Time (DST) in 2022 - starts on Sunday, March 13, 2022, 02:00 local time (clock by 1 hour ahead) - ends on Sunday, November 6, 2022, 02:00 local time (clock by 1 hour back)Īlphabetical list of U.S.What time is it? Here's how a common daily question can have multiple answers. Nowadays, 48 of the US states use Daylight Saving Time (DST) in the summer period, the exceptions are Arizona, where most of the territories do not change to DST (since 1967), and the entire Hawaii, which has never observed the summer time. UTC+10:00 Chamorro Time Zone comprises Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, located in the northwestern part of the Pacific Ocean.UTC-11:00 Samoa Time Zone embraces the American Samoa islands in the South Pacific.UTC-04:00 Atlantic Time Zone comprises the Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands in the Caribbean.

Other 3 time zones are used in the insular areas of the US, outside of the states. UTC-10:00 Hawaii-Aleutian Time Zone covers Hawaii and western part of the Aleutian Islands belonging to Alaska.UTC-09:00 Alaska Time Zone, as clearly observed in its name, includes the most of the territory of Alaska.UTC-08:00 Pacific Time Zone covers 6 states - the entire states of California and Washington, most of Nevada and Oregon with some exceptions, the Metlakatla Indian Community in Alaska, and some northern parts of Idaho.UTC-07:00 Mountain Time Zone includes 14 states, only 6 of them are wholly in this zone, all the others use the Mountain Time in some parts of their territories.UTC-06:00 Central Time Zone, the largest one by area, encompasses 20 states, but only 10 of them are located entirely within zone's boundaries, all remaining states have some exceptions.De facto the Eastern Time often is used as the USA official time. UTC-05:00 Eastern Time Zone, the most populous in the USA, includes the District of Columbia with the capital city of Washington and 23 states wholly or partially located within this zone.

The entire 50 states and the District of Columbia have 6 main time zones. There are 9 standard time zones in the US officially defined by federal law.
