Chatham Island Standard Time is 12 hours and 45 minutes ahead of GMT and 45 minutes ahead of New Zealand Standard Time. The Chatham Islands are a territory of New Zealand, and the time zone was established in the wake of the Standard Time Act 1945. It was later formalized by New Zealand's Parliament in 1956, officially taking effect on January 1, 1957.

Composed of 600 tiny islands covering an area of just 270 square miles, the Federated States of Micronesia are considered the smallest nation by area to utilize more than one time zone. The two time zones used by Micronesia to earn them this record distinction are UTC+10 and UTC+11.

The largest time jump anywhere in the world occurs at Wakhjir Pass, which is part of the 46-mile-long China-Afghanistan border. Crossing between the two countries either adds or subtracts 3.5 hours from the current time. This is due to the fact that China uses one time zone nationwide, and this border is located close to China's westernmost point.

It's rare for three time zones to converge, though in Australia it happens at three separate locations. One of those geographic points is the famous Cameron Corner, which sits on the intersection of the time zones of Queensland, New South Wales, and South Australia. The location has become a popular tourist attraction for those ringing in the New Year.

Time zones in America tend to zig-zag along internal borders, keeping entire states on the same time. In some cases, like Tennessee, this isn’t geographically practical and the state is split in half. But for Nevada’s West Wendover, the motivation is economical — the town depends on tourism money from neighboring Utah, so they petitioned to abandon Pacific Time for Mountain.

Despite being near the same longitude as much of Great Britain (and even somewhat to the west), Spain shares a time zone with countries as far east as Sweden and Poland. In 1940, fascist leader Francisco Franco adopted the same time zone as Germany. Spain has never gotten around to changing it back, leading to 9 a.m. sunrises in parts of the country.

Korea operated 8.5 hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time until 1910, when the country was invaded by Japan and switched to that country’s time zone, nine hours ahead of GMT. In 2015, to mark the 70th anniversary of their liberation, North Korea set their clocks to pre-invasion time. The change was short-lived, though — in 2018, they switched back to be on the same time zone as South Korea.

Before 1892, Samoa was west of the International Date Line. That year, the country jumped east of the line to be on the same day as the U.S., with the hopes of encouraging trade. (Appropriately, they made the switch on July 4.) But in 2011, the island nation switched back to improve trade with New Zealand and Australia, jumping directly from December 29 to December 31.

Despite sitting 2,330 miles apart in the Pacific Ocean, the Hawaiian Islands share a similar longitude with the Aleutian Islands, thus allowing them to share a time zone. Hawaii doesn't observe daylight saving time, however, so during that period the Aleutian Islands transition to Hawaii-Aleutian Daylight Time, while Hawaii sticks to the zone's standard time.

Nepal is the only nation that isn’t on the hour or half-hour with Greenwich Mean Time. (Only a handful of local time zones within other nations share this quirk.) The tiny Himalayan country sets its clock to noon when the sun passes over the peak of Gauri Shankar (a more centrally located mountain than Everest), putting them at almost exactly a quarter-hour between neighboring China and India.

When the Qing Dynasty fell in 1912, the newly formed Republic of China had five time zones, befitting a country of its size. Following the Communist Party’s takeover in 1949, however, Mao Zedong decreed the whole country would use Beijing Standard Time. The move was made to foster a sense of national unity, especially with the Uighur population of the westernmost Xinjiang province.

With territory encompassing 12 separate time zones, France holds the total time zone record, featuring one more than both the United States and Russia. While mainland France only spans one time zone (Central European Time), the country's territories bring that total number up to 12, ranging from French Polynesia (UTC-10) all the way to Wallis and Futuna (UTC+12).

The three-hour time difference between New York and California can complicate things, but it’s nothing compared to Russia's 10 mainland time zones. The easternmost region of Kamchatka is a staggering nine hours ahead of Moscow, the capital. Russia also has an 11th time zone in Kaliningrad to the east, though that sits geographically apart from the Russian mainland.

When the Dominion of Newfoundland was absorbed into Canada in 1963, one of the terms of the deal included the province choosing its own time zone. Since the island was positioned on the eastern edge of the Atlantic Time Zone (four hours behind Greenwich Mean Time), they decided to keep a bit of their individuality by creating Newfoundland Time, which is 3.5 hours behind GMT.

While there are various offsets throughout the globe, the world is generally divided evenly into 24 time zones, which represent the 24 hours of the day. Each of these time zones encompasses 15° of longitude, with the Prime Meridian sitting right at 0°. This means that Greenwich Mean Time spans longitudes of 7.5°W to 7.5°E.

Railroads need to maintain a schedule, and that works better when everyone agrees on what time it is. That's why railroads got together and came up with a plan to divide the U.S. into time zones and synchronize official clocks according to those divisions. The plan first went into effect on November 18, 1883.

The Eastern Seaboard of the United States includes states bordering the Atlantic Ocean, so it's no surprise that almost every single one of these oceanfront states is contained entirely within the country's Eastern Time Zone. However, most of the Florida panhandle, which extends south of Alabama, belongs to the Central Time Zone.

Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) was adopted in 1967 as a more accurate clock setting than Greenwich Mean Time. Though the time zones are generally identical, UTC incorporates the use of atomic clocks and factors in the Earth's rotation, which provides for a more precise time reading. The abbreviation UTC is a compromise between the English (CUT) and French (TUC) abbreviations.

Nestled between the Central and Pacific Time Zones, the aptly named Mountain Time Zone falls mostly over the Rockies and major cities such as Denver, Salt Lake City, and Albuquerque. Although it is one of the four main time zones in the continental United States, the Mountain Time Zone contains less than 7% of the U.S. population.

Until the 19th century, different locations had different times based on local sunrises and sunsets. The variations didn’t matter much until the advent of railroads and steamships, which quickened trade and required precise schedules. After an international conference in 1884 to determine where the world would sync their clocks to, the Observatory of Greenwich, England, was chosen.