Your clock is regulated by the Coordinated Universal Time standard. This is the primary time standard in the world, and the standard after which the entire world regulates its time. UTC stands for Coordinated Universal Time. If you live in Seattle and you’ve promised to deliver a certain project to an Ireland-based company by, say, Monday morning, you better get it done on Sunday evening your time – Seattle is eight hours behind Dublin, which means your today is their tomorrow and, unless agreed otherwise, they will be expecting results on their time – not yours. For example, UTC is Zulu Time in military jargon.įinally, time zones matter when it comes to legal issues and work contracts.

The military uses different names for the different time zones, but the way they work is exactly the same. In addition, time zones are very important for military purposes. You can imagine the trouble you would have communicating with people who are 6 to 12 hours ahead or behind your time! This is where time zones come in: you can plan your communication by calculating the time differences between you and the person you’re trying to reach, and suggest a time that suits you both. If the person you are speaking to or who ships your product is in a different time zone, it may be midnight your time when it’s noon his or her time. Time zones are very important for commercial and social activities, legal reasons, military use, trade, and just about every other human activity on the planet.Īs long as two countries are in the same time zone, you won’t have any communication issues. Imagine the chaos this would cause: without agreeing on standard time, we wouldn’t be able to agree on, well, anything else. Without a standard time that all countries in a time zone must observe, the countries would never observe at the same time. This is because time zones aren’t about longitude but rather, latitude due to the rotation of the Earth.Īs you can imagine, noon is at different times in each country, which means that noon (12 PM) would be observed at different times from country to country corresponding to their position West or East. Time zones run horizontally rather than vertically: Moscow and Paris will have different time zones, but Cape Town and Madrid observe the same time. This way, it will be the same hour in all the countries and the cities in the particular time zone they observe. What Is a Time Zone?Ī time zone is a region on Earth that observes the same time. To find out why and to learn some fun time zone facts to outshine your trivia night rivals, let’s dig into the history, use, and curious facts about the UTC and time zones in general. In addition to time zone confusion, UTC is often used instead of GMT, the Greenwich Mean Time.

This means that if you’re trying to reach them at 10 AM your time, you’re calling them at 2 in the morning in LA! Needless to say, your Los Angeles friend won’t be happy to answer that call. For example, if you’re based in London, UK, and you’re calling someone in Los Angeles, US, keep in mind they’re eight hours behind you.

Understanding time zones and the UTC time standard is essential if you’re traveling if you work with people in different countries, or simply for social reasons.

Curiously, UTC is both a time standard and a time zone, and it’s frequently used to describe either… Confused yet? To shed light on the matter, let’s talk about what time zones really are, what UTC is, and what are some of the major countries and cities in UTC. When it comes to understanding world time, most people don’t know what UTC is and what the UTC time.

Utc time offset meaning