North Pole has no time zone: Here is why
You have all read about North Pole and South Pole in your Geography lessons, right? If you pick up the globe and look at the topmost point that is where the north pole is. At this point, Earth's surface meets its axis of rotation. But what time is it there when you wake up at say 6 am here? No time! Yes, literally, that’s because the North pole doesn’t have a time zone.
But what’s a time zone? A time zone is an area that observes the same standard time. That standard time is synchronised to the position of the sun in the sky and set according to the offset from one Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). This UTC starts at the Prime Meridian (zero degrees longitude). Based on this, the whole world is divided longitudinally (vertically), into 24 time zones connecting the two poles, with an hour of difference roughly 15 degrees apart. But at the poles themselves, all these lines converge. So, technically the poles are in all the time zones simultaneously. Confused? Let’s make it easy for you.
The converging lines of longitude
As already mentioned, all lines of longitude converge at the North Pole as the world is divided into 24 time zones longitudinally. So, if you are standing at the North Pole, all directions point south. Accordingly, its longitude can be defined as any degree value rendering all the time zones meaningless. Therefore, there is no time zone assigned for that region. That means, if you are at the North pole, you can use any time as the local time and no one will disagree with you. Isn’t it weird to think about a place where a single person can decide to create his own time at any instant? Well, practically no one lives there.
North Pole has no land, no people
Unlike other places or countries, the North Pole is not defined by any border or boundary. It is practically impossible to mark the exact location of the North Pole because of shifting sea ice. Surprising, right? That is partially because there is no land and no people. The entire area is located in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, visited rarely only for the purposes of research by a vessel or a lonely supply ship that mistakenly strayed from somewhere else. Imagine drifting somewhere in the ocean without any sense of time!
How is the time set?
But then how do these research vessels or say the captains of those ships which got stranded operate in such a zone where there is no sense of time? They choose their own time. They can choose to maintain the time zones of bordering countries or switch it based on ship activities and even choose to observe the same time zone as their country of origin. For example, they may tune their watches according to the incoming ships of other countries following their country’s time.
Sun rises and sets just once in a year
A single day is marked by a definitive sunrise and sunset. But this happens just once a year around the North Pole. Yes, the sun rises and sets just once per year at the North Pole. Wait, so does that mean that a single day lasts for months? Or is a year just a day long? Confusing, right?
As you know that the Earth rotates on a tilted axis as it revolves around the sun. Therefore, at the poles, the sunlight received is at extremes. There are only two polar seasons at the poles — summer and winter. In summer at the poles, the sun stays above the horizon 24 hours a day – meaning no sunrise or sunset, just constant daylight from March to September. This unique phenomenon is caused by the seasonal tilt of the Earth toward the sun during the Arctic summer. Similarly, in winter the sun stays below the horizon. In short, you can say that the sun rises and sets just once a year at the poles.