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World Time Zone Map

An interactive map of every time zone on Earth, colored by UTC offset, with the live local time in each. Tap a zone — or search any city or country — to see its current time, UTC offset, and whether daylight saving is in effect right now.

Tap any zone for its live time, UTC offset & DST status.
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UTC−12UTC−8UTC−4GMTUTC+4UTC+8UTC+12UTC+14

Zones are colored by their standard UTC offset. A few use half- or quarter-hour offsets (India UTC+5:30, Nepal UTC+5:45, Chatham Islands UTC+12:45). Time zone boundaries © OpenStreetMap contributors, via timezone-boundary-builder (evansiroky), ODbL v1.0. Boundaries are OSM-approximate, not a legal survey.

The world is commonly divided into 24 main time zones, one for each hour of longitude, but in practice there are about 38 distinct UTC offsets in use — from UTC−12 to UTC+14. The extras come from regions that use half- or quarter-hour offsets (India, Nepal, parts of Australia) and Pacific islands near the date line that run furthest ahead. Every zone is defined as an offset from UTC, the global time standard.

Major time zones at a glance

UTC offsetExample citiesNotes
UTC−11Pago Pago, MidwaySamoa Standard Time
UTC−10HonoluluHawaii–Aleutian — no DST
UTC−9AnchorageAlaska
UTC−8Los Angeles, VancouverUS/Canada Pacific
UTC−7Denver, PhoenixMountain (Phoenix: no DST)
UTC−6Chicago, Mexico CityUS/Canada Central
UTC−5New York, Toronto, Lima, BogotáUS/Canada Eastern
UTC−4Santiago, Halifax, Caracas
UTC−3:30St. John’sNewfoundland — half-hour offset
UTC−3São Paulo, Buenos Aires
UTC+0London, Lisbon, AccraGMT / the reference
UTC+1Paris, Berlin, LagosCentral European Time
UTC+2Cairo, Athens, Johannesburg
UTC+3Moscow, Nairobi, Istanbul, Riyadh
UTC+3:30TehranIran — half-hour offset
UTC+4Dubai, Baku
UTC+5Karachi, Tashkent
UTC+5:30Mumbai, Delhi, ColomboIndia — one national half-hour zone
UTC+5:45KathmanduNepal — quarter-hour offset
UTC+6Dhaka, Almaty
UTC+7Bangkok, Jakarta, Hanoi
UTC+8Beijing, Singapore, Perth, ManilaChina uses one zone nationwide
UTC+9Tokyo, Seoul
UTC+9:30Adelaide, DarwinAustralia Central — half-hour offset
UTC+10Sydney, Brisbane
UTC+12Auckland, Suva (Fiji)
UTC+12:45Chatham IslandsNew Zealand — quarter-hour offset
UTC+14Kiritimati (Line Islands)Earth’s furthest-ahead zone

Offsets shown are standard time; many of these regions shift one hour for daylight saving in their summer. Tap a zone on the map for the live current offset.

UTC, GMT & time zones explained

What is UTC?

UTC (Coordinated Universal Time)is the world’s time standard — the single reference every time zone is measured against. It is kept by atomic clocks, is the same everywhere on Earth, and never changes for daylight saving. A place’s local time is just UTC plus or minus its offset: New York is UTC−5, Tokyo is UTC+9.

GMT vs UTC

GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)is the older standard — mean solar time at the Greenwich meridian (0° longitude) in London, which served as the world’s reference for over a century. UTC formally replaced it in 1972. For everyday purposes the two are identical (they never differ by more than a fraction of a second); “GMT” now mostly survives as a casual synonym and as the name of the UTC+0 zone in the UK and West Africa.

How offsets work

Each 15° of longitude corresponds to about one hour of offset — places east of Greenwich are ahead of UTC (positive), places west are behind it (negative). In reality the boundaries bend around national and provincial borders rather than following the meridians exactly, which is why the zone map is full of jogs and steps.

The international date line

Roughly opposite Greenwich, near the 180° meridian, runs the international date line — cross it westward and the calendar jumps forward a day; eastward, back a day. It zigzags to keep each country on one date: Kiribati bent it far east in 1995 (creating the UTC+14 zone), and Samoa skipped December 30, 2011 to move to the western side for trade with Australia and New Zealand.

Why some zones are :30 or :45

Not every offset is a whole hour. To better match solar time — or for political reasons — a dozen or so places use half- or quarter-hour offsets: India at UTC+5:30 (one national zone splitting its width), Nepal at UTC+5:45 (deliberately 15 minutes ahead of India), Newfoundland at UTC−3:30, and the Chatham Islands at UTC+12:45.

Notable time zone facts

  • Most time zones: France. Its overseas departments and territories span 12 zones — from French Polynesia (UTC−10) to the Indian Ocean and Pacific — more than any other country. The United States and Russia are next with 11 each.
  • Most contiguous zones: Russia. Across one connected landmass Russia covers 11 zones, from UTC+2 (Kaliningrad) to UTC+12 (Kamchatka).
  • One zone despite huge width: China.China officially runs on a single zone (UTC+8, “Beijing time”) even though it geographically spans about five — so in far-western Xinjiang the sun can rise around 10 AM by the clock. India (UTC+5:30) likewise uses one national zone.
  • The 26-hour spread.When it is noon on the Line Islands (UTC+14) it is 10 AM the previous day on Baker Island (UTC−12) — the same instant, 26 hours apart on the clock and calendar.
  • Neighbours a day apart.The Diomede Islands sit 2.4 miles apart in the Bering Strait, but Little Diomede (US) and Big Diomede (Russia) are about 21 hours apart on the clock — often called “Tomorrow Island” and “Yesterday Isle.”
  • Most of the world skips DST. Daylight saving is mainly a North American, European, and southern-hemisphere-Oceania practice; most of Asia, Africa, and the tropics keep the same offset all year.

Frequently asked questions

The world is commonly described as having 24 time zones, one per hour of longitude. In practice there are about 38 distinct UTC offsets in use — from UTC−12 to UTC+14 — because several regions use 30- or 45-minute offsets (India at UTC+5:30, Nepal at UTC+5:45, the Chatham Islands at UTC+12:45) and some Pacific islands run as far ahead as UTC+14.
UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) is the global time standard that every time zone is defined against — a zone is expressed as an offset from UTC, like UTC−5 or UTC+9. It is kept by atomic clocks, is the same everywhere on Earth, and does not observe daylight saving. UTC replaced GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) as the formal standard in 1972; for everyday purposes the two are the same.
GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) is mean solar time at the Greenwich meridian (0° longitude), which was the world's time reference for over a century. UTC replaced it as the formal standard in 1972, and the two are effectively identical — they never differ by more than a fraction of a second. "GMT" is still used casually, and it is the name of the UTC+0 zone kept by the UK (in winter) and parts of West Africa.
The international date line is an imaginary line running roughly along the 180° meridian, on the opposite side of the globe from Greenwich, where the calendar day changes. Cross it going west and you jump forward a day; going east, you go back a day. It zigzags to keep countries on a single date — Kiribati bent it far east in 1995 (creating the UTC+14 zone), and Samoa skipped December 30, 2011 to switch sides.
A handful of places use half- or quarter-hour offsets to better fit their solar time or for political reasons. India uses UTC+5:30 as a single national zone (splitting the difference across its width); Nepal uses UTC+5:45 to sit 15 minutes ahead of India; Newfoundland is UTC−3:30; and the Chatham Islands are UTC+12:45. About a dozen offsets worldwide are not whole hours.
France has the most — 12 time zones — because of its overseas departments and territories spread across the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic oceans (from French Polynesia at UTC−10 to Réunion at UTC+4 and beyond). The United States and Russia are next with 11 each (counting territories). Mainland-only, Russia spans the most contiguous zones.
London (UTC+0/+1) is 5 hours ahead of New York (UTC−5/−4) for most of the year. The gap briefly changes to 4 hours in late March and early November, because the US and the UK switch daylight saving on different dates. Tap either city on the map above to see both live times side by side.
Up to 26 hours. The furthest-ahead zone is UTC+14 (the Line Islands, Kiribati) and the furthest-behind in use is UTC−12 (Baker Island). So when it is noon on one, it can be 10 AM the previous day on the other — a 26-hour spread across the same instant.
Yes. Tap any zone (or search a city or country) and the panel shows the current local time there, ticking every second, computed in your browser with the correct UTC offset and daylight-saving status for right now.

Related tools

Just need US zones? See the US Time Zone Map — Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific, Alaska, and Hawaii with split states and Arizona’s no-DST area. For the zone and live time at one specific place, use the Time Zone Finder, and to compare working hours across several cities at once, the Time Difference Calculator.