The earth rotates 15 degrees every hour, then why aren't time zones lines located exactly along the meridians?

Answer 1

Convenience. Even within, say, 100 miles of a meridian, it doesn't make that much difference if it's the one time zone or the other. We sacrifice an exact match with the meridian for the convenience of having a whole city, county, or, even, state be within the same time zone.

It'd just mess things up too much to have time zones split down the street just because an imaginary line has been drawn there. You need medicine for your kid. The place right across the street is closed because it's an hour later there. You have to drive through rush hour traffic to get to the one 2 miles away. It takes a half hour, if you're lucky, one way. Meanwhile your kid is screaming and crying because he's sick. All because that darn line of longitude fell on your street.

And what if it goes straight through an office building? A doctor's office? A court house?

Answer 2

Yes, it's for convenience. Some cities straddle a time zone boundary, so by convention, they adjust their local time to coincide with one or the other zone. Some areas, like Adelaide in South Australia, go half way, by adjusting their time zone by half an hour, so as not to be a full hour out of step.

If you have a look at an atlas, you will notice that the international date line (theoretically longitude180 degrees) does not coincide exactly with the 180 longitude. This is because, at the date line the east side of the line is a day ahead of the west side. Therefore, the line dodges around to avoid the confusing situation of having the date line run through a particular area (eg, some groups of pacific islands).

Answer 3

The short answer is 'politics`.
Many regulations are time dependent, and it
is more convenient if each jurisdiction is wholly
within a single time zone.

Answer 4

if i remember correctly, alot has to do with population densities in certain locations