World Time Zones on an Interactive Map

About the time zone data

The colored bands represent an idealized set of time zones based on 15° longitude steps from UTC-12 to UTC+11. Real-world time zones follow country and region borders and may differ from these simplified shapes, but this view is useful for understanding global UTC offsets at a glance.

Your local time zone

When you use the Current position tool, your location is resolved locally in the browser and passed to a privacy-friendly public API to obtain your local time zone, elevation and basic weather. GeoDataViewer does not store or log your coordinates.

Countries with the most time zones

Interesting time zone facts

• • China's Single Time Zone: China uses a single time zone (UTC+8) across the entire country, despite spanning five geographical time zones. This creates late sunrises in the west (e.g., Xinjiang).
• • India's Standardization: India also observes a single standard time (UTC+5:30) for the whole nation to simplify transport and communication schedules across its vast territory.
• • Daylight Saving Time (DST): Less than 40% of countries worldwide currently observe DST. It is primarily used in Europe and North America, while most countries in Africa and Asia (near the equator) do not use it.
• • Fractional Offsets: Not all time zones are hour-aligned. Examples include Nepal (UTC+5:45), Newfoundland (UTC-3:30), Iran (UTC+3:30), and parts of Australia (UTC+8:45, UTC+9:30).
• • International Date Line: The line is not straight; it zig-zags around islands like Kiribati so the whole country can be on the same calendar day. Kiribati's Line Islands are in UTC+14, the earliest time zone on Earth.
• • Samoa's Time Travel: In 2011, Samoa skipped Friday, December 30th entirely, jumping from UTC-11 to UTC+13 to better align its trade days with Australia and New Zealand.
• • Antarctica's Chaos: Since lines of longitude converge at the South Pole, Antarctica has no official time zone. Research stations usually observe the time of their supply base country or nearby New Zealand.
• • UTC vs. GMT: While often used interchangeably, GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) is a solar time standard based on Earth's rotation, whereas UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) is defined by atomic clocks and is the precise scientific basis for civil time.
• • Extreme Time Difference: The Line Islands (Kiribati) are at UTC+14, while Baker Island (USA) is at UTC-12. Although they are geographically close, the time difference between them is 26 hours—more than a full day.
• • DST Variations: While most regions shift by 1 hour, Lord Howe Island in Australia only shifts by 30 minutes (UTC+10:30 to UTC+11). Also, the start and end dates of DST vary significantly between North America and Europe.
• • Space Time: The International Space Station (ISS) uses UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) for all its operations, ensuring coordination between control centers in different countries.
• • Nepal's Unique Offset: Nepal has a time zone of UTC+05:45. It is one of the few places with a 45-minute offset, chosen to mark the time relative to the peak of a specific mountain.
• • North Korea's Shift: In 2015, North Korea created its own time zone (UTC+08:30) called "Pyongyang Time," but switched back to UTC+09:00 in 2018 to align with South Korea for diplomatic reasons.

Major Countries and Regions Time Zones