Setting up of Time Zones in the World

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A timezone is a region of the globe that observes a uniform standard time for legal, social and commercial purposes.  Time zones tend to follow the boundaries of countries and their subdivisions instead of strictly following longitude because it is convenient for areas in close commercial or other communication to keep the same time. 

Prior to the late nineteenth century, timekeeping was a purely local phenomenon. Each town would set their clocks to noon when the sun reached its zenith each day. A Clock maker or Town clock would be the "official"time and the citizens would set their pocket watches and clocks to the time of the town. Travel between cities meant having to change once pocket watch on arrival. However, once railroads began to operate and move people rapidly across great distances, time became much more critical. In the early years of railroads, the schedules were very confusing because each stop was based on a different local time. The standardization of time was essential for the efficient operation of railroads. 

In 1878, Sir Stanford Fleming of Canada proposed the system of worldwide time Zones that we use today. He recommended that the world be divided into twenty-four time Zones, each spaced 15 degrees of longitude apart. Since the Earth rotates once every 24 hours and there are 360 degrees of longitude, each hour the earth rotates one-twenty-fourth of a circle or 15 degrees of longitude.These Time Zones were recognized as a brilliant solution to a chaotic problem worldwide. 

Thereafter, in 1884, International Prime Meridian Conference was held in Washington to standardize time and select the prime meridian. The conference selected the longitude of Greenwich, England as Zero degrees longitude and established the 24 times Zone based on the prime meridian. It is known as Shepherd Gate clock. 

Today, many countries operate on variations of the time Zones proposed by Sir Fleming. All of China - which should span five times Zones - uses a single time Zone - eight hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) based on the time Zone running through Greenwich at 0 degree longitude. Australia uses three time zones - its central time zone is a half-hour ahead of its designated time zone. Some countries in Middle East and South Asia also utilize half-hour time zones. 

Prior to 1972, this time was called Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) but is now referred to as Coordinated Universal Time or Universal Time Coordinated (UTC). It is the basis of civil time today. This 24-hour time standard is kept using highly precise atomic clocks combined with the Earth's rotation. 

Since time zones are based on segments of longitude which narrows at the poles, working at North and South poles simply use UTC time. Otherwise, Antarctica would be divided into 24 very thin time zones. There are nine time zones in USA and its territories which include Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific, Alaska, Hawaii - Aleutian, Samoa, Wake Island and Guam. 

With the growth of Internet, global communication and commerce, some have advocated a new worldwide time system. 

Presently, the European Parliament has backed a proposal to stop the obligatory - one hour clock change which extends daylight hours in summer EU-wide. Day -light Saving Time (DST) so- called summer time - has been compulsory in in the EU since 2001, aimed at making the EU internal market work more smoothly and reducing energy costs. Ministers will also have a say on this. 

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