Russia: A country with 11 time zones
Ever heard the concept of a time zone? No? Maybe because India has just one time zone. That is, the entire region of India follows one standard time. If your wall clock is ringing 2 pm in Delhi, your friend’s watch in Chennai will also show the same time. But the same is not true for all countries around the world. Infact, France has the greatest number of time zones: 13 and Russia has 11 time zones.
What does a time zone mean?
A time zone is an area that observes the same standard time. The idea of a time zone was first invented by Scottish Canadian inventor, Sir Sandford Fleming in 1878. Most countries, especially the smaller ones, have only one time zone.
Why does Russia have 11 time zones?
Russia was divided into eleven time zones in 1919, after the Bolshevik Revolution. Russia is a huge country by area expanding from east to west in the northern hemisphere and therefore, the country felt the need to adopt 11 time zones. The time in Russia ranges from UTC+02:00 to UTC+12:00.
However, there have been several attempts in the past to reduce the number of time zones. Why? Because places that are near and have different time zones are not able to work efficiently and produce the best outputs. Different timelines create inefficiencies. For example, a factory where its supplies come from a nearby area with a different time zone will not be able to source its material according to its own timeline, thereby creating delays in output.
That said, there are also pitfalls of reducing time zones in a country as vast as Russia. For example, maintaining one time zone for a large area could result in extremely early sunsets (as early as 3 pm) in some parts of the country.
However, some are of the view that Russia would be able to function with lesser and smaller time zone differences taking a cue from China. China despite its huge size, is officially in one time zone.
How many time zones are there?
Let’s understand how these time zones are divided. The starting point at which Coordinated Universal Time (UTC, the standard time the world regulates its clocks by) starts is the Prime Meridian (zero degrees longitude). The whole world is divided longitudinally (vertically), into 24 time zones with each hour difference roughly 15 degrees apart. But why 24?
There are 24 hours in a day, and 360 degrees of longitude encompassing the globe – dividing 360 by 24 gives you 15 degrees of longitude that equates to a one-hour difference in each time zone. Based on this, you can deduce that there are 24 time zones around the world.
How is a time zone decided for any country?
The time zone depends upon the geographical position of any place on Earth. However, governments accept a particular time zone for their convenience. So, they decide how many time zones they want to keep for their country.