Time Zone
A region of the globe that observes a uniform standard time for legal, commercial, and social purposes.
A time zone is a region of the globe that observes a uniform standard time for legal, commercial, and social purposes. Time zones are defined as areas that differ from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) by a whole number of hours, although some are offset by 30 or 45 minutes.
Time zones were first adopted in the late 19th century to standardize local time, which previously varied from town to town based on solar time. The concept was formalized following the 1884 International Meridian Conference, which established the Greenwich meridian as the Prime Meridian (0° longitude).
Most time zones are defined as offsets from UTC. For example: - UTC-5 (Eastern Standard Time in North America) - UTC+1 (Central European Time) - UTC+8 (China Standard Time)
Many regions also observe Daylight Saving Time (DST), temporarily shifting their clocks forward by one hour during summer months to extend evening daylight.
Time zones are typically identified using various naming conventions: - IANA/Olson time zone database identifiers (e.g., "America/New_York", "Europe/London") - Abbreviations (e.g., EST, CST, PST) - UTC offset notations (e.g., UTC+2, UTC-7)
The IANA time zone database is the most comprehensive and widely used system for identifying time zones in computing applications.