How are latitude and longitude lines related to time zones?

Answer 1

Local mean time, the time used before time zones, which is set to noon when the sun is at its highest point in the sky as seen from your city, is one hour ahead for every 15° of longitude eastward. That equates to four minutes ahead for each degree of longitude east, or four minutes back for each degree of longitude west.

Answer 2

Very loosely!

IN general, it's 12 Noon when the Sun is at its highest point in the sky, either due south or due north of your location. But the Earth is spinning, taking 1 day (24 hours) to spin once from Sun to Sun. So different places would set their clocks differently.

In horse-and-buggy days, that didn't much matter. But when the railroads were built, the station master here in East Nearburg needed to have a way to set his clock to the same time as the station master in West Farshire. "Time zones" were invented by the railroads.

There are 24 hours in a day, and 360 degrees in the spinning Earth. So each 15 degrees of longitude is - generally - associated with one hour of time. The time zone boundaries twist and turn to follow political and geographic boundaries, but in general, a "time zone" is about 15 degrees wide.

Answer 3

Originally there we 24 timezones each spaced 15 degrees of longitude from the prime meridian (0 degrees longitude) which runs through Greenwich, England. This happened in the late 1800's.

As you can imagine, getting all the countries in the world to adopt such a convention is difficult, so timezones are a mix of the original timezones adjusted by local countries and politics. For example, China's landmass covers what would be 5 timezones, but chooses to operate on only 1 timezone.

Answer 4

Time and longitude are related in one very simple way. Most of the locations on one line of latitude will be in a similar time zone.

Answer 5

Each time zone should be centered around a multiple of 15° of longitude, but many are not.