Image credit: WorldTimeZone.com

I was setting up a phone call with a potential partner last week and I wanted to make sure I chose a time that was good for them (in India) and us (on the east coast). The first time I searched, I got an answer that 9 am EST was 6:30 pm IST. I thought I misread or found a faulty source of information, so I checked a few other sites. As it turns out, India really is on an “offset time zone” from most of the world. Whaaat?! I couldn’t believe I’d never heard of this before. You’d think someone would have mentioned it at some point in my education.

Up until that point, I thought the strangest thing about time zone breakdowns was that China, despite spanning a good 4 or more time zones, is on a single time. That means that sunrise may be around 6 or 7 for people in Beijing, but it isn’t something like 10 for those out in the western parts of the country. It makes things easier since you don’t have to convert between times, but boy is it strange to have people starting their work day when it’ll still be pitch black outside for a good 2-3 hours. Then again, for the majority of the population it’s not a big deal, since everyone crowds towards the eastern border where all the major cities are.

This of course got me thinking about what other strange nuances there might be with time zones. Turns out that not only do countries like India, Venezuela, Afghanistan, and Australia have time zones that are off by 30 minutes, there are even a few places that decided to take it one step further with a 15-minute increment difference. Nepal is one of the few places in the world that is one on of those random time zones, which is +5:45 from GMT. I also came across this fun artistic way of showing some of the stranger time zones that have existed throughout history. Imagine being 4:51 off GMT… is that 1 really necessary? Wouldn’t being 9 minutes later for a full 5 hours be just fine?

They really should have taught this stuff in school. It’s pretty interesting.