Is the world divided into 24 time zones? A friend of mine said this at a dinner party!?

Question

He also mentioned the international date line? What is this and how does it impact on the time zones?

Answer 1

Your friend is right.

There are 24 time zones. The Greenwich zone has number 0 (GMT), and there are 11 zones to the west and 12 to the east (or 12 west and 11 east, depends how you count). Basically GMT +12 and GMT -12 is the same time zone and the International Date line lies inbetween Asia/Australia and the Americas.

For the map see: http://www.worldtimezone.com/

Answer 2

and you with a name like global village!
The day is divided into 24 hours, and it isn't the same time everywhere in the world. Where you are it may be evening but in some parts of the world it's the middle of the night and in others it's early morning or lunchtime, for example.
For people to the west of where you live, it's earlier, for people to the east, it's later. When you watch the news you sometimes see people reporting live from Irak or Afghanistan and it's already dark there whereas it's still daylight where we are.
This whole time zone thing is what causes jet lag. If you take off and go on a six hour flight you might feel like it's bedtime when you land but for them it's the middle of the afternoon, so your day is more than 24 hours long, or you could fly the other way and wonder where the night's gone!
The international date line goes roughly down through the Pacific Ocean. This is officially where the planet's new day and date start. An hour later, it's 1 o'clock there but in the next time zone the new day is just starting. After another hour, it's two o'clock in the first zone, one o'clock in the second, and the day is just starting in the third. and so on!

Answer 3

The 24 time zones you are referring to are Measured in GMT Greenwich mean time starting at the Greenwich meridan which starts at the north pole runs through Greenwich and ends at the south pole at equal distances running parallell with this line the earth is split into 24 peices each representing one hour GMT.Therefore when it is 12 noon at Greenwich it is midnight at the zone immediatly opposite at the other side of the world and that line is the international date line where the next day begins.These are not rough lines but lines of longtitude and were first introduced to assist navigation.Time in most countrys is actually LMT local mean time as in UK where we have British summertime .

Answer 4

Any of the 24 longitudinal divisions of the earth's surface in which a standard time is kept, the primary division being that bisected by the Greenwich meridian. Each zone is 15° of longitude in width, with local variations, and observes a clock time one hour earlier than the zone immediately to the east.

The International Date Line (IDL), also known as just the Date Line, is an imaginary line on the surface of the Earth opposite the Prime Meridian which offsets the date as one travels east or west across it. Roughly along 180° longitude, with diversions to pass around some territories and island groups, it corresponds to the time zone boundary separating +12 and -12 hours GMT (UT1). Crossing the IDL travelling east results in a day or 24 hours being subtracted, and crossing west results in a day being added.

Answer 5

It's commonly believed that there are 24 time zones, but that's incorrect.

I read that there are 6 additional intermediate time zones listed. They are: 1. Canada : Newfoundland 30 min from Halifax, 2. New Zealand: 45 min between Chatum Is. and Wellington, 3. Nepal is 45 min from the +5 Hrs timezone, 4. French Polynesia: Marquesas is 30 min off from Gambier, Australia has 2 sets: Darwin is 1.5 hrs difference from Perth and So. Australia is 30 min off from Queensland. So there are 30 time zones recognized throughout the world!

But then this one claims 31......

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/custom.html?sort=2

and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_zones
claims that there are 39

The Wikipedia entry for "Time Zones" provides a comprehensive
description of each of the 39 distinct time zones and contained areas:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_zones

Not all governments choose to make use of all of
the time zones that would ideally cover their nation. It is because of
this, as well as ideosyncracies surround the use (or non-use) of
Daylight Savings Time, that there are so many 'time zones' in a world
that has nominally 24 hours in a day!

Answer 6

no everyone always forgets about the Newfoundland time zone which is 1/2 hour ahead of the Atlantic time zone for example in Canada plus other countries have plus 1/2 hour or plus 45 minute time zones plus another example in India is 1/2 hour off surrounding countries.They are called offset time zones

Answer 7

yes there are 24 time zones, not sure about the second one though.sorry.