The World Clock Time-Zone Landscape: what 162 places reveal about time zones
Time zones look like a tidy grid of whole hours. They aren't. I read the standard UTC offset of all 162 cities, countries and regions on our World Clock straight from the IANA database (via Intl ) — and the real shape is lumpy, with quarter-hour outliers and a near-even split over whether clocks move at all. The quirk, in one line: Kathmandu keeps its clocks 5 hours 45 minutes ahead of UTC — the…
Time zones may appear to be a neat grid of whole hours, but the reality is far more complex. A comprehensive analysis of 162 cities, countries, and regions using the IANA database reveals a landscape dotted with quarter-hour outliers and places that maintain their clocks at non-whole hour intervals. Kathmandu, Nepal, stands out as the sole location with a 5 hours 45 minutes offset from UTC, making it an anomaly among the 11 places on the board that do not adhere to whole hour offsets.
Over half of the remaining zones never adjust their clocks, highlighting the political nature of time zone design rather than its astronomical basis.
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