Does the North and South Poles and adjacent areas have a Time Zone?

Question

Well, this is kinda baffling, as all the longitudinal lines meet at both the north and south poles, so I guess they don't have a fixed time zone nor any time zone for that matter... What do you think???

Answer 1

Theoretically the time zones should extend south/north, getting smaller and smaller to infinity until they reach the exact pole. But this isn't really how things are done in real life. Since I don't have time to explain this myself I'll just quote off a website....

"Question:
What time zone is Antarctica in? Do they have daylight savings time?

Answer 1:
I don't know about anybody else, but I found this question to be
both amusing and thought-provoking. I asked a scientist friend
who has spent some time in Antarctica: the continent has no official time zones. Individual research stations use whatever time zone is convenient, usually whichever is closest in S. America or Australia. For example, McMurdo Station uses the same time zone as Christchurch, New Zealand. Dates and times are almost always expressed in GMT, Greenwich Mean Time, as used by scientists all over the world to avoid any possible ambiguity.

Answer 2: It is also interesting to note that most of
Antarctica lies south of the Antarctic circle, which means
that there is sunlight 24 hours a day during summer and
darkness 24 hours a day during winter. Under these conditions,
I think you can see that there would be no point to having
daylight savings time."

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I agree with the guy in the first answer - this is a very interesting question.

Answer 2

The time zones do meet at the poles and there is no time zone on the exact poles. As soon as you step off the pole you are in one time zone or another, and you can set your clock accordingly. Polar explorers use their home station's local time or Greenwich Mean Time as a reference.

Answer 3

Time zone? I don't think so, they just have long summers and long winters.