This article is rated List-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||
|
Does anyone know how the :30 and :45 time zones affect the presence of a certain hour?no
For instance, if it is noon GMT, will it be noon in Alaska nine hours later (9:00GMT) and then noon in French Polynesia a half-hour after that (9:30GMT)?-- 99.251.89.115 ( talk) 21:51, 19 October 2008 (UTC)sara
If so, it seems that a particular moment on a particular day will actually happen 39 times. Is this actually the case?
Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.132.36.24 ( talk) 16:11, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
This is a pretty nice list. If we add some references, we should nominate it as a featured list. Chanheigeorge 23:20, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
This source looks pretty detailed: Time Genie. Chanheigeorge 22:57, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Does anyone know what time is used in Arctic and Antarctica? Dali 19:09, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
So if someone told me to call them at 9 PM in England, does that mean 1 PM in California or 2 PM? Thank you. 71.243.206.213
Great idea, but does every single time zone need four representative cities listed? One for Nepal, Afghanistan, etc. should suffice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.199.120.129 ( talk) 15:55, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
There are various mentions of places which have recently changed Time Zone - I've spotted Chihuahua, Venezuela, Georgia, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Kyrgyzstan, Taiwan, Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, Marshall Islands, Phoenix Islands, Line Islands. I suggest that it would be well to have a separate list on this page for those and any other reasonably recent (or future) changes; the details in the main list could be replaced by links to that.
There are a few cases where territories have changed from one side of the Date Line to the other, thereby losing or gaining a day. That's of particular interest, and deserves its own list of all known changes however long ago. Alaska 1867, Marshall Islands, Phoenix Islands, Line Islands, at least.
Having separate lists will make omissions more obvious and more likely to be corrected.
82.163.24.100 17:48, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Is there some reason why an English Wikipedia article titled List of time zones is missing the most common English names and abbreviations of the time zones? I was disappointed that I could not find these here, one of the very rare situations where Wikipedia did not contain some meaningful (i.e., non-trivial), widely-known information that one should expect to find. I realize that, for accuracy and global relevance, we should lead with internationally recognized designations, but it seems absurd not to include the more commonly-known data alongside the official stuff, even where it is ambiguous. (In fact, it's the very ambiguity and other issues, along with explanations, that would make their inclusion here a very useful thing.)
As with so many other articles, I have neither the time nor the expertise to write all this up myself just now, so I ask those who regularly maintain this article if they would consider adding this data (along with cited sources, of course). Thank you. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 06:45, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
{{
cite web}}
: Check date values in: |date=
(
help)The article says, "This gives the interesting feature that during one hour each day there are three different dates in use on land around the world." This statement is certainly correct, but I think it doesn't clearly and fully convey how screwed up time zones are. For one thing, I think the "on land" qualifier may be unfairly ignoring "UTC-12: Ships at sea within 7.5° east of 180° and United States Minor Outlying Islands." If we count those people, then aren't there three dates coexisting for a full two hours each day? Another implication of this which isn't clearly mentioned is that there are always at least two dates in use on the surface of the Earth, and there are always at least three time zones using a different date than the majority of world.
Also of note, if we simply didn't have the time zones UTC+12, +13, and +14, then we could still accurately represent the time of day in all parts of the world, but there would never be three dates simultaneously coexisting, and for one full hour each day the entire planet would share a single date. Fluoborate ( talk) 19:04, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure if this is the right place to get attention for this, but it's a start: I came upon UTC+1 via Special:Randompage earlier, and noticed that it didn't actually say what "UTC+1" means.
I went to fix it, but then realised I'd have to fix over 24 other articles; except they're not all the same. And then I realised that there are articles for each time zone (e.g. Central European Time) as well as each time offset (e.g. UTC+1). And then I found this list, which actually has the information fairly well organised.
So:
And am I even making that distinction correctly, since none of the pages seem to... - IMSoP ( talk) 01:46, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
[Hm, talking to myself...] To go into a bit more depth, I can see the following information being useful:
For each time offset:
For each named time zone:
Obviously, there's a lot of overlap there, so I'm not sure quite how the articles can be neatly divided (does the fact that much of Spain is actually west of Greenwich but uses UTC+1 belong under UTC+1 or Central European Time, or both?) - IMSoP ( talk) 18:44, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
A discussion has been started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries/Lists of countries which could affect the inclusion criteria and title of this and other lists of countries. Editors are invited to participate. Pfainuk talk 12:07, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Some of the time zone names have a dagger symbol or a double-crossed line indicator. There is no explanation of this, though the double-cross seems to be applied to zones with a difference that includes 15 or 45 minutes. The dagger symbol seems to be used for full-hour different zones 13+ and 14+ and for zones that include a 30 minute difference.
The 13+ and 14+ zones are also indicated M(ike). For my own reference chart, I have indicated they don't have a mnemonic name, but what would NATO call them if they sailed into Tongan or Kiribatian waters? Mike-Plus-One and Mike-Plus-Two? (Yankee and Mike are the same, except Mike is 24 hours ahead of Yankee.) Or Xray-plus-a-day and Whiskey-plus-a-day? I'd suggest "nu" and "omicron" as the Greek equivalents of the next two English letters. GBC ( talk) 05:47, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
Also, would it be prudent to indicate Israel and Islamic countries on the chart that may begin the legal date at 6 pm or sunset rather than midnight? I'd suggest a symbol for 6 pm and a symbol for sunset. GBC ( talk) 06:01, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
For the purposes of this article there seems to be no need to follow the additional symbols used on the World Time Zone Map. I have used † throughout and added an explanation to the introduction of the article. Coroboy ( talk) 19:11, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
Someone posted Legal Time 2010 (as of 15 April) at List of country calling codes; while the list is from the ITU, it is just a list of time zones for various countries/regions and has nothing to contribute to that list. But it may be useful as a source here. Anomie ⚔ 03:44, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
This is a list of geographic areas by UTC offset. TZ master ( talk) 12:39, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
Does this explain why the listing for Newfoundland and the tip of Labrador is off? They are listed as UTC - 4:00 here, but are actually in the Newfoundland Time Zone, which is UTC -3:30 during Standard Time, and UTC -2:30 during Daylight Time. (Source: http://www.timetemperature.com/tzca/newfoundland_time_zone.shtml)
HarmonicSphere ( talk) 13:14, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
Why have the * and ** indicators been removed from virtually all of the regions in the list? This information was present on the English page before, and is still there on other language pages. It is still documented in the page description:
What possible justification is there for removing this useful information? -- 67.215.46.59 ( talk) 18:11, 22 March 2012 (UTC) Sean Sherrard shermat2atisudotedu
Yes, I find it very regrettable, too, that this information has been removed from the article. This used to be the best list of time zones but, sadly, is not any more.
Is there any possibility that the DST info is put back into this list? Martin -- 94.194.149.238 ( talk) 10:38, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
It appears that some contributors feel that year round time is the norm, and the places that use daylight savings time (primarily wealthy Europe, North American countries, and Australia - along with their economically dependent neighbors) are out of step. But we should not be imposing our values on our readers. Rather, we should be describing what is already in place and how it works.
I've been trying to preserve and emphasize the distinction between time zone and time offset, among other things. And I hope to straighten out the daylight saving time mess as well. Anyone want to join in?
Not seeing any particular method or pattern to which cities were chosen (other than being capitals), I added the capital (or commercial capitals) of countries that were not represented. Now, another user has come along and deleted at least some of those, leaving the selection particularly short of African cities. What should be the criteria for the list? How about country capital or commercial capital and population more than x (to be determined)? —[ AlanM1 ( talk)]— 09:24, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
This article suffers from a confusing perspective. It lists time offsets, as if these were the same as time zones. I know that some websites take the same perspective, but I think this confuses the reader.
A time offset is not the same as a time zone. The UTC time offset observed in a place is the amount of time subtracted from (or added to) Greenwich Time (aka UTC). Many localities in the English-speaking world also observe a daylight saving time by adding one hour from this offset. So they really have two time offsets.
I'm not really sure if it's so good to have a list of UTC time offsets in addition to a list of time zones. Just having the time zone list would probably be a whole lot more clear for our readers. -- Uncle Ed ( talk) 21:31, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
The main problem occurs with western longitudes. Next to the top and the bottom edges of the map, the map gives UTC offsets (e.g. -5 for the time zone containing New York). But in the body of the map, one finds something that in the legend of the map is called the ″time zone number,″ and for the time zone containing New York, that number is 5 (i.e. +5). In the legend at the bottom, it says (for western longitudes), ″Add time zone number to local time to obtain UTC. Subtract time zone number from UTC to obtain local time." Now that's correct if one really uses the time zone number, i.e. the number indicated in the body of the map. The confusing part is that right above the legend, what one sees is not the time zone number, but rather the UTC offset, and, of course, if (for the time zones in the western hemisphere) one uses the UTC offset with the prescription given in the legend, one gets a wrong result. (There is no corresponding problem for time zones in the eastern hemisphere, because for them, their ″time zone numbers″ coincide with their UTC offsets.)
The second problem with ″time zone numbers″ is that they are not a unique identifiers for time zones: for every time zone in the western hemisphere with a given ″time zone number,″ there is a time zone in the eastern hemisphere with the same ″time zone number″ (e.g. the time zone containing New York in the U.S. and the time zone containing Karachi in Pakistan both have the same ″time zone number,″ namely 5).
The third problem is that with this system of ″time zone numbers,″ if one wants to convert from local time to UTC or vice versa, then one needs to use different formulas depending on whether one is interested in the time zones in the western hemisphere or in the eastern hemisphere. This is evident from the legend. In contrast, one and the same formula using UTC offsets is valid for time zones in both hemispheres: ″UTC″ = ″local time in a zone″ - ″UTC offset for that zone″. The only problem with that (if it is a problem at all) is that one needs to know how to do arithmetic with negative numbers (e.g., in the winter, the UTC offset for New York's time zone is -5, so when it's 15:47:00 in New York in the winter, the UTC time is computed as 15:47:23 - (-5:00) = 20:47:23 UTC). In the system used in the map, one only ever does arithmetic with positive numbers.
The fourth problem is that it is unclear what reputable source uses this kind of ″time zone numbers.″ This map, and some similar to it, can be found at the University of Texas at Austin library online map collection, here. Indeed, the map under discussion seems to be precisely this map. Note, however, that in maps from 2005 and earlier, the numbers shown next to the top and the bottom edges of the map are not the UTC offsets but rather the ″time zone numbers,″ so the main problem discussed above does not occur. However, the remaining problems are still there. In particular, it is not clear who or what produced these maps. On the other hand, reputable sources I was able to find do not use this system of ″time zone numbers.″ One reputable source, the 2002 edition of Bowditch's American Practical Navigator, uses positive numbers for the western hemisphere, and then continues with negative numbers in the eastern hemisphere (e.g. New York's time zone is labeled ″5″, while Karachi's is labeled ″-5″). To see this, download Chapter 18 (″Time″) here, and look at the map in Fig. 1806 on p. 279. This is consistent with the U.S. Navy manual available here. Other systems (arguably) use the UTC offsets as designators for time zones, e.g. here and here. Still other systems do not use number designators at all. For example, this map, on which it says that it was ″Compiled by HM Nautical Almanac Office,″ uses only letter designators.
How best to resolve these problems would seem to depend on how one resolves the confusion between the concepts of ″UTC time offset″ and ″time zone,″ and between the concepts of ″standard time″ and "standard time zone"; this confusion is discussed here. However, as a temporary resolution, one could simply follow what seems to be the natural instinct and use the UTC offsets as time zone numbers. This would require two rather easy modifications of the map: 1. adding the minus signs in front of the ″time zone numbers″ in the body of the map in the western hemisphere, and 2. appropriately changing the conversion recipe in the legend. Reuqr ( talk) 10:28, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
This system where a following right indent "cancels" the previous line seems highly counter-intuitive and misleading. Any better suggestions? I though perhaps replace
with
There also ought to be information about summer time use (as it seems from discussion on this page that there once was). W. P. Uzer ( talk) 07:58, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
It's confusing. I recommended tabulating the list. I'd recommend the columns go something like 1) Time offset, 2) Specific place experiencing it, 3) where place is in the world (country, state/province), 4) reference. You should be able to remove the note altogether than. But i will leave it up editors more failure with this topic to hash it out, I'm just a list expert. Dkriegls ( talk to me!) 11:26, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
Where is Connecticut on this list? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro ( talk) 16:00, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Westernmost Mongolia seems to be unaccounted for (only the zone named after Ulaanbataar (most but not all of the country)) is included. 2601:204:D502:1837:69EB:4883:1215:3DFE ( talk) 15:53, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
These edits are by a suspected vandalism-only account. But the addition of Malé looks OK to me so I've corrected it. Feel free to revert my edit if I have it wrong, and of course the others if in fact they are also wrong. Or even revert my edit if it just makes it easier to fix the damage, it's easily redone. TIA Andrewa ( talk) 07:08, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 16:08, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
@ Lachlb: you have several times added a bunch of cities, and moved away from alphabetical order in the lists, without so much as an edit summary to say why. You have been reverted thrice now. Please take this opportunity to say why you think this improves the article, or refrain. Dicklyon ( talk) 16:08, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
@ Lachlb: – changes came back yesterday, with no discussion that I can see, so I reverted them again today. Dicklyon ( talk) 01:22, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
I made the sections below into subsections, as they address this topic. Dicklyon ( talk) 01:23, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
I think there should be sometimes two principal cities in in a few time zones like UTC+10:00, UTC+08:00, UTC+05:30, UTC-07:00 and UTC-09:00 because China in UTC+08:00 has Shanghai as its largest city and Beijing as its capital, India in UTC+05:30 has Delhi as its largest state and Kolkata is the 6th largest city, Phoenix is the largest city in UTC-07:00 but does not use daylight saving time but Denver is the second largest city in the U.S.A in this time zone and uses daylight saving time and Alaska in UTC-09:00 has Anchorage as its largest city and Juneau as its capital city. Lachlb ( talk) 09:32, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
São Tomé and Principe has changed its local time back again to Greenwich Mean Time. Lachlb ( talk) 09:33, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
Kyzylorda in Kazakhstan changed time zone from UTC+06:00 to UTC+05:00 Lachlb ( talk) 09:34, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
I think there should be two principal cities in UTC+13:00 because Apia, Samoa is the largest city in this time zone and Nuku’alofa, Tonga is the second largest city in this time zone. I think there should be two principal cities in UTC-01:00 because Praia, Cabo Verde is the largest city in this time zone and Ponta Delgada Portugal is the second largest city in this time zone. I think there should be one principal city in UTC-03:30 because St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada is the largest city in this time zone. I think there should be one principal city in UTC-11:00 because Pago Pago, American Samoa is the largest city in this time zone Lachlb ( talk) 09:47, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
I think Mumbai and Kolkata should be principal cities in UTC+05:30 because Mumbai is the largest city in India and Kolkata is the sixth largest city in India and I don’t think Delhi should be a principal city because it’s too small. Lachlb ( talk) 09:51, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
I think Cuiabá and Asunción should be principal cities in UTC-04:00 because they use daylight saving time. Lachlb ( talk) 10:15, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
I think Nuuk should be a principal city in UTC-03:00 because it uses daylight saving time and I also think Luanda, Algiers and Vienna should be principal cities in UTC+01:00 because Luanda and Algiers have over 3 million people and Vienna is the world’s most liverable city Lachlb ( talk) 10:19, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
I think there should sometimes be two or more principal cities because my argument is only being one city per country is because it doesn’t match other time zone related articles, so I believe there should be two or more cities because my argument is it improves the article more by matching more related time zone articles. Lachlb ( talk) 22:57, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
Hi Dicklyon and Eldumpo, I live in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, I have studied Time all around the world and I was trying to help fix the Wikipedia up for you because I found out the Turks and Caicos Islands reintroduced Daylight saving time by setting the clocks back 1 hour to Eastern Standard time on November 4, 2018, Kyzylorda changed time zone to from UTC+06:00 to UTC+05:00 on 21, December 2018 and São Tomé and Principe changed its time zone back to UTC+00:00 on January 1, 2019, I found out all of this information on the timeanddate app. I have also found out that Calgary is the largest city in Alberta and has got more people than Edmonton that is why I have put Calgary as principal city in UTC-07:00 instead of Edmonton, Mumbai is the largest city in India and Delhi is just a state that is why I have put Mumbai as a principal city in UTC+05:30 instead of Delhi, Shanghai is the largest city in China and has got more people than Beijing that is why I have put Shanghai as a principal city in UTC+08:00 instead of Beijing, I have added Macau as a country in UTC+08:00 because it’s also a country in UTC+08:00 and I have found out that the real time zone in Russia in UTC+11:00 is Magadan Time, that is why I have put Magadan Time instead of Srednekolymsk Time. I have also added Managua, San Salvador and Tegucigalpa to UTC-06:00 in order to match the article UTC-06:00. I have also added Asunción as a principal city to UTC-04:00 in order to match the article UTC-04:00, and I have also added Algiers, Luanda and Vienna as principal cities to UTC+01:00 in order to also match the article UTC+01:00. I have also sorted out the principal cities in UTC+01:00 and UTC+00:00 from European cities first as principal cities from largest to smallest by population then African cities from largest to smallest by population. I have also sorted out UTC-05:00 principal cities from American cities first from largest to smallest by population then Caribbean cities from largest to smallest by population and then I’ve sorted out South American principal cities from largest to smallest by population. Thank you for your letters about my proposed changes to this article. Lachlb ( talk) 10:48, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
Lachlb, that's great that you're trying to improve the article. You've probably noticed that other editors also care about the time-zone articles, and don't always agree with your changes. That's why you need to be more involved in discussion when disagreements arise; otherwise your work will be mostly reverted and we won't here what the thinking was behind your edits. If you could comment on the feedback you've gotten, other editors will be in a better position to comment, possibly breaking a tie. Thanks for engaging here. Dicklyon ( talk) 02:06, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
Hi BIL and Dicklyon thank you for your letters about my changes to this article. I have made a number of changes to this article and these changes were in UTC+02:00 I replaced Kaliningrad with Lubumbashi and moved Athens between Johannesburg and Kiev and I did this in order to match the article UTC+02:00 and to sort out European cities smallest to largest. I have also added principal cities to UTC-03:30 and UTC-01:00 in order to match the articles UTC-03:30 and UTC-01:00 I have also added two cities per country in UTC-07:00, UTC+05:30, UTC+08:00, UTC+09:30 and UTC+10:00 in order to match the articles UTC-07:00, UTC+05:30, UTC+08:00, UTC+09:30 and UTC+10:00. I have also found out that the Magallanes Region of Chile uses daylight saving time year round that is why I have put this region in Chile in UTC-03:00. I have made all these changes to this article because I want to improve the article more by matching other articles and fixing things that are not correct. Lachlb ( talk) 07:25, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
Hi Dicklyon, the reason I also mentioned BIL because I wanted to thank the user for his letter about the topic.
I have also corrected time in Ecuador that the only part of the country that is in UTC-06:00 is the Galápagos Islands that is why I have written except Galápagos Islands in front of Ecuador in UTC-05:00. I have also added Abidjan as a principal city in UTC+00:00 in order to match the article UTC+00:00 and I have also added Tbilisi and Yerevan as principal cities in UTC+04:00 in order to match the article UTC+04:00, I have also added Edmonton and Hermosillo as principal cities in UTC-07:00 in order to match the article UTC-07:00, I have also added Brisbane as a principal city in UTC+10:00 in order to match the article UTC+10:00, I have also removed Praia and Ponta Delgada in UTC-01:00 because the population is under 1 million and I have also removed Papeete in UTC-10:00 because the population is only 26,926. Lachlb ( talk) 23:05, 15 June 2019
Not all of mainland Chile is in UTC-04:00 because the Magallanes Region is on UTC-03:00 year round since 2016 according to various time zone apps. I have also added a reference supporting my changes to the time zones. Lachlb ( talk) 07:32, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
I just corrected South Africa time zone by saying expect Prince Edward Islands in front of it in UTC+02:00. Lachlb ( talk) 04:43, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
I have just sorted some countries provinces and states in alphabetical order. Lachlb ( talk) 04:43, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
The reason why I have put Calgary as a principal city in UTC-07:00 instead of Edmonton because Calgary has more than 1 million people and Edmonton doesn’t. Lachlb ( talk) 05:40, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
It's part of Ukraine, not Russia, so it has to use Ukrainian time zone. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:E35:1392:1090:D8C8:F473:CB75:B35B ( talk) 22:29, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
An editor using at least 2 different IP addresses has been cluttering the list up with flags and with countless minor locations. These edits do not seem to be an improvement. -- David Biddulph ( talk) 07:29, 18 August 2021 (UTC)