Time Zone Converter
Country Time Zones Reference
Country | Time Zone | Current Time | UTC Offset |
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Time Zone Converter
Easily convert time and date from one country to another with accurate time zone support. Perfect for scheduling meetings, travel planning, or staying in sync globally.
What Is a Time Zone?
A time zone is a region of the Earth that observes the same standard time. Time zones are usually based on geographical boundaries like countries or longitudinal lines.
The reference point for all time zones is Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), set at zero degrees longitude in Greenwich, London. Today, however, most of the world uses Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which is based on atomic clocks and the Earth’s rotation. While GMT is still used as a time zone in parts of Africa and Europe, UTC is the global timekeeping standard.
Key Difference: GMT is a time zone; UTC is a time standard.
Understanding UTC and Time Offsets
Unlike some local time zones, UTC does not change with daylight saving time (DST). Most time zones around the world are defined by their offset from UTC, such as:
UTC-05:00
(e.g., New York)UTC+08:00
(e.g., Beijing)
Some places use half-hour or even quarter-hour offsets like UTC+05:45
(Nepal) or UTC+06:30
(Myanmar). These offsets range from UTC-12:00
to UTC+14:00
.
Time Zone Map of the World
Most countries adopted standardized hourly time zones by 1929. The last to do so was Nepal in 1956. Although the general rule is one-hour difference per 15° of longitude, many countries deviate for practical or political reasons. For example:
China uses a single time zone despite spanning five standard zones.
Russia uses 11 time zones, although this number has changed in the past.
🗺️ Time zones are not purely scientific—they’re influenced by geography, politics, and convenience.
Time Zones in the United States
The U.S. operates across 9 time zones, the most common of which are:
Eastern Time (ET):
UTC-05:00
Central Time (CT):
UTC-06:00
Mountain Time (MT):
UTC-07:00
Pacific Time (PT):
UTC-08:00
Other U.S. time zones include Atlantic, Alaska, Hawaii-Aleutian, Samoa, and Chamorro. States like Alaska are split across two zones, while California and Washington are fully within PT.
Some U.S. regions follow daylight saving time, adjusting the clocks one hour ahead in spring and back in fall. Others—such as parts of Arizona or U.S. territories in the Pacific—do not observe DST.
Daylight Saving Time (DST)
DST is practiced in many parts of North America and Europe to make better use of daylight during the longer days of summer. Clocks are moved forward by one hour in the spring and set back in the fall.
DST aims to align waking hours with daylight, potentially reducing energy use.
It’s less useful near the equator or in regions with little daylight variation.
Related Calculators:
Date Calculator, Time CalculatorExternal Resources:
Time Zone Converter On Calculator.net