Planet Earth, rotating around its axis, is illuminated by the Sun at different times in different areas, so noon occurs at its own time for everyone. In order to take these time differences into account, time zones were invented.
How many time zones are there in the world?
There are two concepts of time zones:
- Geographical. These are conditional stripes - meridians that have width and divide the earth's surface. How many time zones are there on Earth? There are 24 of them in total. The zero meridian is considered to be the one passing through the London Greenwich Observatory.
- Administrative. They are also called time zones. Each of them has its own standard time established by law. These are areas of the earth's surface formed taking into account the rotation of the planet Earth and having the same local time. They differ next from the previous one by an hour. How many time zones are there in the world? There are 24 of them, respectively. They practically coincide with geographic time zones. And the starting point is also the Greenwich meridian. And time within its zone is usually called “world time”. The countdown goes from west to east.
The boundaries of time zones pass along major rivers, administrative and interstate boundaries.
Changeover between summer and winter time
There is also a system for changing between summer and winter time. In the first case - an hour ahead, and in the second - an hour ago. European Union countries, as well as Türkiye, Egypt and many others use it. And Russia and most CIS countries have recently abandoned this system. This is due to the fact that there is a lot of evidence of its harmful effects on human health.
Stability of time is much more useful; it does not harm the human biological clock. There is no need to adapt to a new sleep-wake schedule. In addition, there is no need to change schedules and reconfigure equipment for enterprises and transport services.
History of the introduction of time zones
Until the mid-19th century, each large city lived according to its own time. And the villages and small towns located next to it were equal to it. Back then we lived according to the Sun. In those days, there was no such high-speed transport as trains and planes. They rode horses and carts, and such transport cannot cover such a long distance as to cover several time zones. This means that determining time by shadow was acceptable.
When they began to build railways and launched the first trains, everything immediately changed. Trains traveled so quickly that it became difficult to create accurate timetables for them. It was difficult to find out when each of them would arrive at one or another station, significantly distant from the point of departure. When sending telegrams, it was difficult to calculate the time so that the message arrived on time.
European countries solved this problem in their own way. They all began to live according to the same time. It was tied to the solar time of the main city. The railways and telegraphs of the Russian Empire operated according to St. Petersburg time. And individual cities continued to count down their numbers.
The countries of the New World, as America was called at that time, were plunged into complete confusion. All the railway companies there worked on their own time. And each of the states lived in its own way. As a result, big problems arose in those cities where the railway lines of different companies ran.
The solution to the problem appeared later. Canadian engineer Sandford Fleming worked on the railroad all his life. He laid lines between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and, by coincidence, missed the train in 1976. After this, the engineer decided to definitely find a solution to the problem of keeping time around the world.
During a meeting of the Royal Canadian Institute, which took place on February 8, 1879, Sandford Fleming proposed dividing the entire surface of the globe into 24 zones. This idea was not taken seriously. But he continued to promote it until 1884. The International Meridian Conference took place in October. Representatives from 25 countries attended. The Washington Convention on Time Zones and Universal Time was adopted there. The concept of standard time was introduced. The Greenwich meridian was taken as the zero meridian. It became the starting point for longitude on sea and geographical maps. But despite Fleming’s repeated proposals to consolidate the division into time zones in this convention, this issue was not even put to a vote.
The process of introducing time zones began with the United States and Canada, and several decades passed until all countries in the world adopted standard time. It was completed in the 20s of the XX century. The reason for this protracted process was the outburst of signs of self-government in some countries and cities. Now it seems funny, but then people fought for the fact that solar time is much more convenient and more accurate than standard time. Despite the difference in minutes, the heads of cities did not want to switch to it.
Also, the boundaries of the meridians have been moved many times. There have been cases where some cities were divided into two time zones and had a time difference of one hour.
After the collapse of the USSR, the newly formed republics spent a long time deciding which time zone they would belong to and whether they would make the transition to summer/winter time.
Time zones of countries
Let's find out how many time zones the largest countries in the world are divided into.
Oddly enough, France covers the maximum number of time zones. The country itself is located within one meridian, but together with its islands it occupies 12 time zones.
The United States of America occupies 11 time zones.
The Russian Federation is currently located in 9 time zones. You can read more about this in the article on our website about how many time zones there are in Russia ().
World time zones and their offsets from UTC/GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)
Time zones, Greenwich Mean Time.
Standard time is a system of counting time based on dividing the Earth's surface into 24 time zones, every 15° in longitude.
Time within the same time zone is considered the same. In 1884, at the International Conference it was decided to apply this system. In accordance with the international agreement of 1883, the prime ("zero") meridian is considered to be the one that passes through the Greenwich Observatory in the suburbs of London. Local Greenwich Time (GMT), agreed to be called Universal Time or "World Time"
In our country, we switched to standard time for the first time in 1919. At first it was used only in shipping, and since 1924 - everywhere.
On the territory of Russia, since March 28, 2010, there are 9 time zones (before that there were 11 time zones). The Samara region and Udmurtia switched to Moscow time (second time zone). Kemerovo region. (Kuzbass) – to Omsk (MCK+3). Kamchatka Territory and Chukotka - to Magadanskoe (MSK +8). In these five subjects of the Federation, on March 28, 2010, the clock hands were not moved.
Two belts are being abolished - the third (Samara, MSK +1) and the eleventh (Kamchatsky, MSK +9). There are 9 of them in total, and the maximum time range in our country is reduced from 10 to 9 hours.
In Russia, from March 2011, after the transition to daylight saving time, the clock hands will no longer be moved.
In fact, it is considered to be standard time plus 1 hour (throughout the whole year), for the reason that by Decree of the Council of People's Commissars in 1930, in the summer, the clock hands were moved 1 hour forward, to summer time. On the contrary, it was decided not to transfer, and since then the so-called “maternity time” has been in effect in Russia. In summer, with the addition of one more hour, the difference with standard time is +2 hours.
Since 2011, with the abolition of the switches, the stable difference with standard time will be +2 hours. This is healthier for your health - in the off-season, thanks to the stable time, you won’t have to adjust your biorhythms, which is especially important. The time of night sleep and rest will be optimal for the body. The “daylight hours” of the day will increase. It will also be easier for technical services and transport workers - they will not have to, as before, when changing the hands of the clock, reconfigure equipment and change schedules.
Moscow time zone (summer time): +4 (GMT + 4:00)
The boundaries of standard time (see figure) are drawn taking into account physical and geographical features - along large rivers, watersheds, as well as along interstate and administrative boundaries. States can change these boundaries within the country.
The international system U T C (World Time is used; it is designated UTC/GMT or, which is the same thing, UTC), as well as the difference between local and Moscow time - MSK. The plus sign means east, the minus sign means west of the starting point.
The transition to summer time (one hour forward) and winter time (one hour back) occurs on the last Sunday of March and October, respectively. This rule is valid in Russia (until March 2011), the European Union, etc. The dates and procedure for changing the clock hands in other countries may differ slightly in terms of timing.
World Time – UTC/GMT – Greenwich Mean Time (G M T) is equal to Coordinated Universal Time (U T C) with an accuracy of one second - GMT=UTC). The name U T C, over time, will completely replace the term “Greenwich Mean Time.”
Table - time zones of cities around the world (UTC/GMT), winter time
| Kamchatka | UTC/GMT+11 |
| Magadan, Sakhalin. | UTC/GMT+11 |
| Vladivostok | UTC/GMT+10 |
| Yakutsk | UTC/GMT+9 |
| Irkutsk | UTC/GMT+8 |
| Krasnoyarsk | UTC/GMT+7 |
| Omsk | UTC/GMT+6 |
| Ekaterinburg | UTC/GMT+5 |
| Moscow Moscow time, Sochi city | UTC/GMT+3 |
| Minsk "Eastern European Time" (EET) | UTC/GMT+2 |
| Paris "Central European Time" (CET - Central Europe Time Zone) | UTC/GMT+1 |
| London Greenwich Time / Western European Time (WET) | UTC/GMT |
| "Mid Atlantic Time" | UTC/GMT-2 |
| Argentina, Buenos Aires | UTC/GMT-3 |
| Canada "Atlantic Time" | UTC/GMT-4 |
| USA - New York "Eastern Time" (EST - US Eastern Time Zone) | UTC/GMT-5 |
| Chicago (Chicago) "Central Time" (CST - US Central Time) | UTC/GMT-6 |
| Denver "Mountain Time" (MST - US Mountain Time) | UTC/GMT-7 |
| USA, Los Angeles "Pacific Time" (PT - Pacific Time) | UTC/GMT-8 |
Example of daylight saving time designation: CEST (Central Europe
Summer Time) – Central European Summer Time
Table – time zones in Russia.
Local time difference shown:
MSK+1 - with Moscow;
UTC+4 - with Coordinated Universal Time (UTC = GMT)
|
Name winter / summer |
Bias relatively Moscow time |
Offset relative to UTC (World Time) |
|
| USZ1 | Kaliningrad time - the first time zone | MSK-1 | UTC+2:00 (winter) UTC+3:00 (summer) |
| MSK/MSD MSST/MSDT |
Moscow time | MSK | UTC+3:00 (winter) UTC+4:00 (summer) |
| SAMT/SAMST | Samara | MSK | UTC+W:00, (winter) UTC+H:00 (summer) |
| YEKT/YEKST | Yekaterinburg time | MSK+2 | UTC+5:00 (winter) UTC+6:00 (summer) |
| OMST / OMSST | Omsk time | MSK+3 | UTC+6:00 (winter) UTC+7:00 (summer) |
| NOVT/NOVST | Novosibirsk time Novosibirsk, Novokuznetsk Kemerovo, Tomsk. Barnaul |
MSK+3 | UTC+6:00 (winter) UTC+7:00 (summer) |
| KRAT/KRAST | Krasnoyarsk time Krasnoyarsk, Norilsk |
MSK+4 | UTC+7:00 (winter) UTC+8:00 (summer) |
| IRKT/IRKST | Irkutsk time | MSK+5 | UTC+8:00 (winter) UTC+9:00 (summer) |
| YAKT/YAKST | Yakut time | MSK+6 | UTC+9:00 (winter) UTC+10:00 (summer) |
| VLAT/VLAST | Vladivostok time | MSK+7 | UTC+10:00 (winter) UTC+11:00 (summer) |
| MAGT / MAGST | Magadan time Magadan |
MSK+8 | UTC+11:00 (winter) UTC+12:00 (summer) |
| PETT / PETST | Kamchatka time Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky | MSK+8 | UTC+1I:00 (winter) UTC+I2:00 (summer) |
Terms and Definitions
Daylight Saving (Summer) Time (DST)- moving the clock hand forward one hour, carried out on the last Sunday in March, in order to gain an additional hour during daylight hours, to save electricity (for lighting, etc.). Return to the original (winter) time is carried out last. Sunday in October. The transition affects the biorhythms of the human body, its well-being, and it takes a week of adaptation to get used to it. Manipulation of clock hands is a common reason why workers and employees are late for work.
Prime (zero) meridian- The Greenwich meridian, with a geographic longitude of 0°00"00", divides the globe into the western and eastern hemispheres. Passes through the former Greenwich Observatory (in the suburbs of London)
GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) - "Greenwich Time"- on the meridian Greenwich. Determined from astronomical observations of the daily motion of stars. It is unstable (within a second per year) and depends on the constant change in the speed of rotation of the Earth, the movement of geographic poles along its surface and the nutation of the planet’s rotation axis. Greenwich (astronomical) time is close in meaning to UTC (atomic time), and will still be used as its synonym. Another name is "Zulu Time"
In Russian-language meteorology, GMT is designated as SGV (Greenwich Mean / or Geographical / Time)
GMT= UTC (accurate to 1 second)
Timezone(Standard time zone) - difference with World Time UTC/GMT (example: UTC/GMT+4 - fourth time zone, east of Greenwich)
H:mm:ss - 24 hour format(example: 14:25:05). Minutes and seconds - with leading zeros
h:mm:ss - 12 hour format(example: 02:25:05 PM - "two and a half hours in the afternoon" - 14:25:05). Minutes and seconds - with leading zeros
AM- designation of time before noon in a 12-hour format (short version - “A”)
RM- designation of time after noon in 12-hour format
Universal time UT(Universal Time) - average solar time at the meridian Greenwich, is determined from astronomical observations of the daily movements of stars. Its refined values are UT0, UT1, UT2
UT0- time on the instantaneous Greenwich meridian, determined by the instantaneous position of the Earth's poles
UT1- time at the Greenwich mean meridian, corrected for the movement of the earth's poles
UT2- time, taking into account changes in the speed of rotation of the Earth
TAI- time according to atomic clocks (International Atomic Time, since 1972). Stable, reference, never translated. Time and frequency standard
Time in GPS navigation system valid since January 1980. No amendments are introduced to it. It is ahead of UTC time by one and a half dozen seconds.
UTC(from English Universal Time Coordinated) - Universal coordinated time for the coordinated distribution of standard frequencies and precise time signals via radio, television and the Internet - “World Time”. Its synonym: "Universal time zone"
Time scale UTC introduced since 1964 to harmonize the values of UT1 (astronomical measurements) and TAI (atomic clocks).
Unlike Greenwich Mean Time, UTC is set using atomic clocks.
The speed of rotation of the earth is slowing down, and therefore, corrections are introduced into the UTC scale regularly, after a year or two or three, on June 30 or December 31 (leap seconds), so that U T C is no more than a second ( more precisely, 0.9 s) differed from astronomical time (determined by the movement of the Sun), as UT1 lagged behind by a second. This international rule was adopted in 1972.
Time ratio in 2009:UTC (universal) lags behind TAI (atomic) - by 35s.
UTC lags behind the time in the GPS navigation system - by 15 seconds
(counting starts from 1980)
Precise time signals(for clock synchronization) are transmitted over radio channels, television, and the Internet - in the UTC system. More precisely, you can place it, for example, on the Mayak radio signal, but only on the long-wave or medium-wave range (on the “ground-surface wave”). On VHF/FM radio, the signal may be delayed up to several seconds from the true one.
In watches with automatic synchronization (English Radio controlled), time correction occurs from base stations, on ultra-long waves. This system was developed in Europe.
Time difference with countries of the world, regions of Russia and Moscow.
Nowadays, time is set using Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which was introduced to replace Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). The UTC scale is based on the uniform atomic time scale (TAI) and is more convenient for civilian use. around the globe are expressed as positive and negative offsets from UTC. It should be remembered that UTC time is not converted either in winter or summer. Therefore, for those places where there is a change to daylight saving time, the offset relative to UTC changes.
Principles of differentiation
The modern system is based on coordinated universal time (universal time), on which everyone’s time depends. In order not to enter local time for each degree (or each minute) of longitude, the Earth's surface is conventionally divided by 24. When moving from one to another, the values of minutes and seconds (time) are preserved, only the value of the hours changes. There are some countries in which local time differs from world time not only by a whole number of hours, but also by an additional 30 or 45 minutes. True, such time zones are not standard.
Russia - 11 time zones;
Canada - 6 time zones;
USA - 6 time zones (including Hawaii, excluding island territories: American Samoa, Midway, Virgin Islands, etc.);
in the autonomous territory of Denmark - Greenland - 4 time zones;
Australia and Mexico - 3 time zones each;
Brazil, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo - 2 time zones each.
The territories of each of the remaining countries in the world are located in only one time zone.
Despite the fact that the territory of China is located in five theoretical zones, a single Chinese standard time operates throughout its entire territory.
The only administrative-territorial unit in the world whose territory is divided into more than two is the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), which is a subject of the Russian Federation (3 time zones).
In the USA and Canada, the borders are very winding: there are often cases when they go through a state, province or territory, since territorial affiliation with a particular zone is determined at the levels of administrative-territorial units of the second order.
UTC-12 - International Date Line
UTC-11 - Samoa
UTC-10 - Hawaii
UTC-9 - Alaska
UTC-8 - North American Pacific Time (USA and Canada)
UTC-7 - Mountain Time (USA and Canada), Mexico (Chihuahua, La Paz, Mazatlan)
UTC-6 - Central Time (USA and Canada), Central American Time, Mexico (Guadalajara, Mexico City, Monterrey)
UTC-5 - North American Eastern Time (USA and Canada), South American Pacific Time (Bogota, Lima, Quito)
UTC-4:30 - Caracas
UTC-4 - Atlantic Time (Canada), South American Pacific Time, La Paz, Santiago)
UTC-3:30 - Newfoundland
UTC-3 - South American Eastern Time (Brasilia, Buenos Aires, Georgetown), Greenland
UTC-2 - Mid-Atlantic Time
UTC-1 - Azores, Cape Verde
UTC+0 - Western European Time (Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London, Casablanca, Monrovia)
UTC+1 - Central European Time (Amsterdam, Berlin, Bern, Brussels, Vienna, Copenhagen, Madrid, Paris, Rome, Stockholm, Belgrade, Bratislava, Budapest, Warsaw, Ljubljana, Prague, Sarajevo, Skopje, Zagreb) Western Central African Time
UTC+2 - Eastern European Time (Athens, Bucharest, Vilnius, Kyiv, Chisinau, Minsk, Riga, Sofia, Tallinn, Helsinki, Kaliningrad), Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Turkey, South Africa
UTC+3 - Moscow time, East African time (Nairobi, Addis Ababa), Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia
UTC+3:30 - Tehran time
UTC+4 - Samara time, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia
UTC+4:30 - Afghanistan
UTC+5 - Yekaterinburg time, West Asian time (Islamabad, Karachi, Tashkent)
UTC+5:30 - India, Sri Lanka
UTC+5:45 - Nepal
UTC+6 - Novosibirsk, Omsk time, Central Asian time (Bangladesh, Kazakhstan)
UTC+6:30 - Myanmar
UTC+7 - Krasnoyarsk time, Southeast Asia (Bangkok, Jakarta, Hanoi)
UTC+8 - Irkutsk time, Ulaanbaatar, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Western Australian time (Perth)
UTC+9 - Yakut time, Korea, Japan
UTC+9:30 - Central Australian Time (Adelaide, Darwin)
UTC+10 - Vladivostok time, Eastern Australian time (Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney), Tasmania, Western Pacific time (Guam, Port Moresby)
UTC+11 - Magadan time, Central Pacific time (Solomon Islands, New Caledonia)
UTC+12 - Kamchatka time, Marshall Islands, Fiji, New Zealand
UTC+13 - Tonga
UTC+14 - Line Islands (Kiribati)
Before the introduction of standard time, each city used its own local solar time, depending on geographic longitude. The standard time system was adopted in the late 19th century as an attempt to end the confusion caused by each locality using its own solar time. The need to introduce such a standard became extremely urgent with the development of the railway, if train schedules were compiled according to the local time of each city, which caused not only inconvenience and confusion, but also frequent accidents. This was especially true for large territories connected by a railway system.
Before the invention of the railroad, traveling from one place to another took so much time. When traveling, time would only need to be advanced by 1 minute every 12 miles. But with the advent of the railroad, which made it possible to travel hundreds of miles a day, timing became a serious problem.
Great Britain
Britain was the first country to decide to establish one standard time for the entire country. The British Railways were more concerned with the problem of local time inconsistency, which forced the government to unify time throughout the country. The original idea belonged to Dr. William Hyde Wollaston (1766-1828) and was taken up by Abraham Follett Osler (1808-1903). Time was set according to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and for a long time it was called “London time”.
The first to switch to the use of “London time” (1840) was the Great Western Railway. Others began to imitate it, and by 1847 most British railways were using single time. On September 22, 1847, the Railway Clearing House, which set standards for the entire industry, recommended that all stations be set to Greenwich Time with the permission of the General Post Office. The transition took place on December 1, 1847.
On August 23, 1852, time signals were first transmitted by telegraph from the Royal Greenwich Observatory.
Until 1855, the vast majority of public clocks in Britain were set to Greenwich Mean Time. But the process of officially switching to a new time system was hampered by British legislation, thanks to which local time remained officially adopted for many years. This led, for example, to such oddities as, for example, polling stations opening at 08:13 and closing at 16:13. Officially, the transition to new time in Britain took place after the introduction of legislation on the determination of time on August 2, 1880.
New Zealand
New Zealand was the first country to officially adopt standard time throughout the country (November 2, 1868). The country is located 172° 30" longitude east of Greenwich and its time was 11 hours 30 minutes ahead of Greenwich Mean Time. This standard was known as New Zealand Mean Time.
North America
In America and Canada, standard time was introduced on November 18, 1883, also by railroads. By that time, determining the time was a local matter. Most cities used "solar time" and the standard by which time was set was often a well-known clock in each area (for example, clocks in church bell towers or in jewelry store windows.
The first person in the United States to sense the growing need for standardization of time was amateur astronomer William Lambert, who in early 1809 submitted to Congress a recommendation for the establishment of time meridians in the country. But this recommendation was rejected, as was Charles Dowd's original proposal, submitted in 1870, which proposed the installation of four, the first of which would pass through Washington. In 1872, Dowd revised his proposal, changing the center of reference to Greenwich. It was this last proposal of his, almost unchanged, that was used by the railroads of the United States of America and Canada eleven years later.
On November 18, 1883, the American and Canadian Railways adjusted the clocks at all railway stations according to (forward or backward). The belts were named Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific.
Despite the adoption of standard time by major railroads in the United States and Canada, it was still many years before standard time became the norm in everyday life. But the use of standard time began to spread rapidly, given its obvious practical benefits for communications and travel.
Within a year, 85% of all North American cities (about 200) with a population greater than 10,000 were already using standard time. Only Detroit and Michigan stood out noticeably.
Detroit lived on local time until 1900, when the City Council decreed that clocks be set back twenty-eight minutes to Central Standard Time. Half the city complied and half refused. After considerable debate, the decree was lifted and the city returned to solar time. In 1905, Central Time was adopted by city vote. By city ordinance in 1915 and then by vote in 1916, Detroit switched to Eastern Standard Time (EST).
Standard time was introduced throughout the United States with the passage of the Standard Time Act in 1918. The US Congress approved the standards previously established by the railroads, and transferred responsibility for any subsequent changes to them to the Interstate Commerce Commission, the only federal transportation regulatory body at that time. In 1966, the authority to enact time-related legislation was transferred to the Congressional Department of Transportation.
The borders that exist today in the United States have been significantly changed compared to their original version, and such changes are still occurring today. The Department of Transportation processes all change requests and conducts rulemakings. In general, borders tend to shift westward. For example, at the eastern end, sunset may be replaced an hour later (clockwise) by moving to the adjacent time zone to the east. Thus, the boundaries of the time zone are locally shifted to the west. The reasons for this phenomenon are similar to the reasons for the introduction of “maternity” time in Russia (see Summer time). The accumulation of such changes leads to a long-term tendency for the belt boundaries to move westward. This is not uncontrollable, but is very undesirable as it entails late sunrise in such areas, especially in winter. According to American law, the main factor in deciding whether to change a time zone is “to facilitate business.” According to this criterion, proposed changes were both approved and rejected, but most of them were accepted.
From the moment the theory of the sphericity of the Earth and its rotation around the Sun and its own axis ceased to be disputed, it became clear that the entire surface of our planet cannot be illuminated by sunlight at the same time. The time of day changes on the earth's surface consistently and gradually (which, in fact, is a change in time zone). Astronomical time depends on the moment at which the Sun is at its zenith, and this does not happen simultaneously at different points on the earth.
In the old days, there was no problem with the astronomical difference in time of day. In any populated area of the world, time was determined by the Sun: when it is at the highest point, it is noon. Initially, the main city clock was synchronized with this moment. No one thought about any time zone. And no one was particularly worried about the fact that between several fairly close cities the time difference could be 15 minutes.
However, under the influence of technological progress, times and life have changed. “Discord” over time became a real headache, in particular for those who used railway transport. Since standard time zones did not yet exist, to accurately comply with the schedule it was necessary to move the chronometer hand by 4 minutes at the intersection of each meridian. It’s simply impossible to keep track of this!
The railway workers were faced with an even more difficult problem - dispatch services could not really calculate the time the train was at a specific point in the movement. And this already smacked not only of delays, but of collisions and train wrecks.
The solution has been found - the creation of time zones
The idea of bringing order to time synchronization first came to the mind of the Englishman William Hyde Wollaston, better known for his discoveries in the field of metal chemistry. The solution was very simple - the chemist proposed establishing a single time zone throughout the UK - according to the Greenwich meridian. Railway workers immediately seized on this idea, and already in 1840 they began to switch to a single “London” time. In 1852, they began to regularly transmit precise time signals by telegraph.
However, the whole country switched to Greenwich Time only in 1880, when the corresponding law was passed.
The English idea was almost immediately adopted by the Americans. However, there was one catch - the territory of the United States is many times larger than the British Isles, and it is simply impossible for the states to introduce a single time zone throughout the country. Therefore, in 1883, the country was divided into 4 zones, in which the time differed by an hour from the neighboring one. This is how, in fact, the first four time zones appeared - Pacific, Eastern, Mountain and Central.
Even though the railroads were already using standard time, many cities refused to adjust their clocks to comply with the new decree. Detroit was the last to do this in 1916.
Even at the dawn of the time zone system, the “father” of Canadian railways, Sanford Fleming, began to propagate the theory that it was necessary to divide the entire planet into 24 time zones. The idea was rejected out of hand by politicians and even scientists; it was considered a utopia.
However, already in 1884, at a special international conference in Washington, the division of the Earth into 24 belts did occur. However, it must be said that some countries voted against this decision, in particular, the Russian representative - the head of the Pulkovo Observatory, Struve. We only joined the world time system in 1919.
Time zones of Russia
The image below shows the current map of time zones in Russia:
