Have you ever wondered why it’s morning in India while it’s night in America, or why a friend in Australia is already celebrating the New Year when you’re still finishing dinner? The answer lies in something called time zones.The Earth spins on its axis, taking about 24 hours to make one complete turn. This spinning is what gives us day and night. When one part of the Earth is facing the Sun, it’s daytime there; when it’s turned away, it’s night. Because the Earth is round, different parts of the world experience sunlight at different times. If everyone used the same clock, some places would have the Sun rising at midnight or setting at lunchtime—which would be very confusing!To solve this, the world is divided into 24 time zones, one for each hour of the day. Each zone roughly covers 15 degrees of longitude. When it is noon in London, it is already evening in Tokyo and still early morning in New York. This system means people everywhere can have their day begin with sunrise and end with sunset, matching their clocks with what’s happening outside.Time zones aren’t always perfectly straight lines, though. They often zigzag around countries or follow borders, so that people in the same country use the same time. Some countries, like India, use a single time zone even though they’re quite wide, while others, like Russia or the USA, have several.Without time zones, planning meetings, catching flights, or even watching live events would be almost impossible! Time zones help keep life organised, fair, and a lot less confusing for people all over the globe.China has only one time zoneEven though China is almost as wide as the United States, the whole country uses a single time zone called “Beijing Time.”The earliest and latest time zonesThe first place to see a new day is the Line Islands of Kiribati in the Pacific. The last place is Baker Island, a tiny, uninhabited island owned by the USA.Greenwich, England, is the timekeeping centre of the worldGreenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the starting point for all time zones around the globe.France uses 12 time zonesThanks to its territories around the world, France actually uses more time zones than any other country.There’s a place where three time zones meetAt the border of Finland, Norway, and Russia, three different time zones touch at a single point.
