What Are Time Zones? A Simple Explanation for Everyone
How Time Zones Work: A Beginner’s Guide to Global Timekeeping Discover how time zones keep the world in sync. Learn why they exist, how they work, and some fascinating facts about global timekeeping. Understanding Time Zones: A Simple Guide Time zones are a way to organize the world’s time so that everyone can have a standard reference for what time it is, no matter where they are. Imagine if every town or city had its own time—it would be chaos! Time zones help us avoid that confusion by dividing the Earth into 24 sections, each representing one hour of the day. How Time Zones Work The Earth is a sphere that rotates once every 24 hours. As it spins, different parts of the world experience daylight and darkness at different times. To make sense of this, the world is divided into 24 time zones, each roughly 15 degrees of longitude wide. The starting point for time zones is the Prime Meridian (0 degrees longitude), which runs through Greenwich, England. This is why you might hear the ter...