A time zone is a region on Earth that has a uniform standard time for legal, commercial, and social purposes. It is convenient for areas in close commercial or other communication to keep the same time, so time zones tend to follow the boundaries of countries and their subdivisions.
Most of the 40 time zones on land are offset from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) by a whole number of hours (UTC−12 to UTC+14), but a few are offset by 30 or 45 minutes. Some higher latitude countries use daylight saving time for part of the year, typically by changing clocks by an hour. Many land time zones are skewed toward the west of the corresponding nautical time zones. This also creates a permanent daylight saving time effect.
Read more about Time Zone: Definition, UTC Offsets Worldwide, List of UTC Offsets, Time Zone Conversions, Nautical Time Zones, Skewing of Zones, Daylight Saving Time, Additional Information, Computer Systems and The Internet, Time Zones in Outer Space
Famous quotes containing the words time and/or zone:
“By the time a person has achieved years adequate for choosing a direction, the die is cast and the moment has long since passed which determined the future.”
—Zelda Fitzgerald (1900–1948)
“In the zone of perdition where my youth went as if to complete its education, one would have said that the portents of an imminent collapse of the whole edifice of civilization had made an appointment.”
—Guy Debord (b. 1931)