Time zones make logical sense, but they can also be really annoying. How many times have you boarded a flight at 2pm on a Tuesday and landed at 6pm the same day even though you’ve been in the air for NINE HOURS? I know I have. Despite confusing the hell out of everyone, time zones are totally necessary and essential to daily life.
The sunset hour is a time trick
The sun sets in Paris simultaneously earlier and later than in London. This is especially strange because the two cities are not that far apart. Well, France is in a time zone that’s one hour ahead of the UK but geographically it’s slightly to the east, meaning the sunset actually reaches Paris before it reaches London, even though it exists in a time that’s later than the UK, so it’s already later when the sun sets.
The time UK and Europe SHOULD be the same
Amongst many things the Second World War messed up, one of them was the time zones between the UK and the rest of Europe. France, Holland, Luxembourg and Belgium were all originally in the same time zone as the UK, but Germany changed their time to match the German zone (one hour ahead of the UK) during their occupation of those countries during the war.
Some countries defy time zone logic
North America, Africa, Russia and Australia split their land mass up into different time zones (the East Coast of the US is three hours ahead the West Coast), but China, India and Argentina don’t. This makes everything confusing because there are actually four time zones existing between the far west and far East of China, despite there only being one zone for the whole of China itself.
Horizontal time zones and daylight savings
Despite splitting its time zone vertically like the rest of the Australia loses points for its nonsensical vertical time zones. Here’s how it works: Perth, on the far west of the continent, has a single time zone the whole year round, but the central chunk is one-hour-and-a-half ahead for some of the year.
Sometimes zones are
pointlessly small
The island of Market, between Sweden and Finland, is co-owned by both nations and is therefore split down the middle timewise, with a difference of one hour between the two sides. It’s definitely a fair compromise but it also LITERALLY MAKES NO SENSE because the island is basically the size of your front garden.
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