Why is the world divided into 24 time zones?

Answer 1

Earth is divided into 24 time zones. A time zone is a region with uniform standard time so areas near that location can keep the same time. Most time zones on land are offset by Coordinated Universal Time, or UTC, by a the whole hour (UTC-12 to UTC+14).

Answer 2

Amazingly, with 10 minutes of searching, I have been unable to find the answer to this question, so I'm going to give you my guess. Remember, this is a guess.

The world is divided into time zones so the sun is roughly overhead at noon and dawn, and dusk are roughly equally before and after noon. (People like it this way. Otherwise how would they know when it was time for lunch :) It was decided to use 24 divisions because there are 24 hours in a day and each time zone could be one hour different from the adjacent zones. In addition, it keeps noon pretty close to midday everywhere.

Additional off topic stuff: What I did learn while looking for the answer to this question was that there was no standard time until the late 1800s. Each town had a different time based on when the sun was at its zenith each day. A time standard was established for scheduling trains. Railroad companies could not keep track of all the different times in all the different towns they went through so a uniform standard was needed. (So, during the Civil War when Grant or Lee said, "Attack at 10 AM," they had to first figure out what town they were in. :D )

Answer 3

There are not just 24 time zones; there are 41. Each national government decides what the standard time or standard times will be in their country compared to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). If you add up how many different times the world's 196 countries have chosen, it comes to 41.

Answer 4

There is one zone for every hour in the day, 24 zones for 24 hours.

Answer 5

There are 24 time zones because each state needs a time zone.