what are time zones? why do we need them?
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Answer:
The term Time Zone and the number of standard time zones is debatable and discussed among various sources. We generally don’t discuss a lot about time zones in our daily routine life. Below are some common definitions and terms which we can get from different sources debating and defining Time Zone. Here in this article I have tried to put all the references from different articles and websites together at one place to understand not all but at least get the basic idea and most widely accepted term of what Time Zone is and Why it is Important. Any corrections, suggestions and additions to this are most Welcome.
A time zone is a region 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 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.
A ‘Time Zone’ refers to any of 24 regions loosely divided by longitude, where the same standard time is kept.
The Earth spins on an imaginary pole called its axis. The Earth makes a complete rotation or one full turn on its axis every 24 hours. We call each full turn or rotation as a day. The Earth moves 15 degrees longitude each hour and Time zones are primarily based on this same fact. Since there are 24 hours in a day there are 24 standard time zones. (24 hours x 15º=360º). The Prime Meridian or 0º longitude is used as starting point to count Time zones. Each time zone is counted at 15 º intervals and extends 7½º either side of a central meridian.
Corresponding to a one-hour difference in mean solar time, each time zone is theoretically 15º wide. We see that generally to match internal and international borders, the shape of time zones is changed. Civil time refers to statutory time scales designated by civilian authorities, or to local time indicated by clocks, changes by one hour forward and backward respectively for every 15º east or west of the Greenwich Meridian. One would need to divide the longitude, in degrees, by 15 to find the appropriate time zone, in hours.
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