How politics shapes the world’s time zones

In In early January, after 10am, the sun will not rise in Casugar in the far west of China. It will rise before 7am, crossing the border in eastern Afghanistan. The difference is the biggest jump across the borders of lands on Earth. Beijing, which is longitude over 3,000 km to the east, should be about two and a half hours ahead of the Casugar. However, when the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, it dropped five previous official time zones, took citizens to one, and shared “Beijing Time”.

The foundations of the global time zone system were raised at the International Meridian Conference in 1884. However, it took decades before it was adopted around the world. As it is not in charge of international organizations, countries can choose their own zone. They have common sense and health reasons to stick to the nearest solar time. This can be thought of as the natural time where the clock appears at noon when the sun is in its zenith. But they may choose otherwise, as Casugar’s sloppy residents can testify.

Not all time zone changes are as extreme as those in China. Other countries may tweak their time to assert their political identities or add weight to alliances and competition. In 2023, a year after taking on the relevant power from Denmark, Greenland spent an hour moving its clock to ensure greater overlap with its opening hours in Europe. Some remote areas deviate from the main time zones of the territory. To the northwest, the American-operated Pitafik Space Station, which previously delayed the remaining territory for an hour, is two hours behind.

Spain continues to use Central Europe time, which should be an hour ago, due to geography. General Francis Franco, the dictator of the country at the time, changed Spain’s timezone in 1940, coinciding with Nazi Germany. The clock never returned. In contrast, in 2015, North Korea celebrated the 70th anniversary of the liberation of South Korea from Japan’s occupation by moving into the “Pyongyang era.” This was 30 minutes behind the time zones that countries previously shared. (Three years later, certainly, it reversed the change, but the rationale was that this was a gesture of reconciliation with Korea.) Even daylight saving time can be manipulated to reinforce the opposition. When the Palestinian Authorities (PA) partially ruled the West Bank and Gaza in 1993, they adopted a different daylight saving schedule than Israel. And when Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, it chose to change its clock on a different day than the West Bank of PA Run.

In most countries, only one time zone is required. But on a larger scale, the government has options. Like China, some people impose it on the whole masses in the name of unity. In 2024, Kazakhstan transformed two zones into one, “eliminating the barriers of time” between people. In Xinjiang in western China, many local Uighurs prefer to use “Xinjiang time”. This unofficial time zone is two hours behind the official “Beijing Time” due to its closest natural sunlight time. The Chinese, the local Han ethnic group, are the dominant national ethnic group, and are more likely to stick to the latter. People who socialize across ethnic groups should track what time they are scheduled.

In Russia, time zone dominance is a source of pride. In 2009, then-President Dmitry Medvedev said that 11 Russian zones were considered “a vivid symbol of our country’s greatness.” Nevertheless, he argued that the number of zones should be reduced for reasons of efficiency. In 2010, Russia fell into nine zones. However, the vastness of the land and the latitudes of the north shifted away from the unpopular time of the Sun, with protests continuing in the Far East. In 2014, Russia returned to the zone 11, although slightly different.

The time you place it provides a simple way to show who is in charge. Since the invasion in 2022, parts of Ukraine, which have been taken over by Russia, have been moved to Moscow time. Crimea was in Moscow after Russia occupied the peninsula in 2014. This transition was marked by a ceremony to adjust the clocks at Simferopol’s railway stations. This is a pattern of events already familiar to Georgia’s Russian occupied territories.

In an age where all digital transactions and communications are time stamped, time zone changes must be communicated to affected local computers and phones. Updates are tracked in the “TZ Database”. This is the operation of volunteer operations that monitor government announcements and media reports and rely on by telephone and computer companies. However, changes can still cause technical trouble. Users of Russian Apple products complained when changes to the country’s time zone in the 2010s did not reach all devices. The madman ended up setting his phone to Azerbaijan or Armenian time.

The worst destroyer is the government that makes last-minute changes to the daylight saving time (DST) date. Lebanon’s late decision to delay the launch of the 2023 DST has created chaos. They don’t need to delay their fasting as it was intended to help local Muslims observing Ramadan, determined by the moon calendar. Compliance was varied by national institutions, religious organizations and technology companies. Google and Apple showed different times.

In Morocco, the government changed its clock up to four times a year due to the changing interaction between Ramadan and DST. But now they are set to DST forever, except for Ramadan when they return to an hour.

In some countries there have been sufficient clock changes, or shifts in time from the natural cycle of the sun. Mexico went ahead of Morocco and abandoned the DST completely in 2022, but a series of cities along the northern border prefer to remain in sync with the US. Simple and natural can override other concerns. In 2021, 10 years after its independence from Sudan, South Sudan moved its clock an hour ago, but its biggest trading partner remains in East Africa time. But as the official announcement explained, sometimes you just want to set the time in “the real place of the world.” ■

Corrected (31 March 2025): This article stated that due to geography, time in Spain should be an hour behind Central Europe time than before.

Source: Natural Earth; SunCalc; timeanddate.com; Timezone Boundary Builder. tz-lookup; Tz-database