Talk:Time zones

The reason for this page is that I thought it would be a good thing to know how much the time difference is between your home country (or the country you're currently staying in) and the place you're going to visit.
I'd also like to include the full names of the time zones and their abbreviations (like Central European Time - CET). The problem is that one timezone can have different names in different countries or groups of countries, like Eastern Europe Time - EET and Central Africa Time - CAT which are both UTC+2.
Another thing I want to include are the countries/areas with daylight savings time (summer time) in 2004, including dates, etc...
(WT-en) DhDh 18:00, 22 Nov 2003 (PST)

Hmm. Being everything-in-one-easy-place guy, B-) my feeling is that time zone information should be included in the country and possibly region pages (if there's more than one time zone in the country). Just as, if I were going to Mexico, I shouldn't have to save or print a list of all long-distance phone codes just to find the phone code for Mexico, I shouldn't have to save or print all the time zones just to know the time zone in Cancun.

That said, I think this makes a valuable reference for folks doing country and region pages, so they say things like:

Quebec is in the Eastern Time Zone, five hours behind UTC in winter and four hours behind in summer.

Does that make any sense? -- (WT-en) Evan 19:34, 22 Nov 2003 (PST)

That does make sense. I didn't intend this page to be a "regular" one, but rather a kind of index page for general reference. I'm thinking of the sort of thing you find in guides about travel in general rather than guides about a particular destination. I do think such index pages can have their value, even if it is only to compare different destinations with one another. I have ideas for other "index pages" or "charts", such as vaccinations (see Iamat for an example), currencies, weather (Global weather guide), etc... Anyway, before I tackle one of those I'll continue with this one. If it's going to be used, good -- if not, we can always delete it. Your thoughts? (WT-en) DhDh 05:37, 23 Nov 2003 (PST)

I think the quick facts section should include the UTC offset. This page is useful also, but it might be a bit painful to keep them syncronised - although I guess that's the advantage of a wiki - anybody finding the inconsistency can update it. --(WT-en) Caffeine 10:38, 30 Jan 2004 (EST)

Daylight saving time is interesting. The date of changes varies. EU - last sunday in March, last Sunday in October. US - first sunday in April, last sunday in October. According to http://www.timeanddate.com/time/dst2004a.html some change as early as February. I think this sort of stuff probably belongs in the country article however. (WT-en) Caroline 16:43, 31 Jul 2004 (EDT)

This article needs a more complete description of Indiana's insane timekeeping (there are three timezone/dst combinations in Indiana). WikiPedia:Daylight savings time -- (WT-en) Colin 17:00, 31 Jul 2004 (EDT)

But does that belong here or in Indiana? I think that belongs in the Indiana article. (WT-en) Caroline 17:29, 31 Jul 2004 (EDT)

Hmmm, I have an idea that agrees with my generalized laziness. Servers have pretty good timezone management utilities and nice geeks who make sure they keep in sync with the world. All the pages here are generated on the fly, but can be cached which means you cannot put a "This is the current time in this Country/Region/City" display on a page because a cached page would be wrong, but I think you could get the current UTC offset. The server nicely takes care of Daylight Saving Time concepts. Best thing is it can be automated if the database held the timezone for each country, if someone could code it, if someone would put it on the page template, if, if, if. But once done, it's done!! --(WT-en) Richard 2005 Jan 17 10:19 (XXX) -(800)

Countries in several time zones, addition to Understand section?

Our Land Down Under and Canada articles have a section in their Understand section listing which time zones are used in which parts of the country. Is there any particular reason for why we don't have it in articles for other countries spanning several time zones? It would be useful for at least the USA and Russia articles, countries spanning even more time zones. ϒpsilon (talk) 10:28, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Missing out time zones for USA and Russia seem like obvious omissions, and certainly would represent useful information. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 10:32, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

How about the opposite case? Countries that should span several time-zones but don't? I can only think of China as an example, but the same is true for Europe in a sense, as there is no good reason for Spain to be on the time of Görlitz and Britain to be on a different time from France (apart from, well... Britain being Britain). Of course not having to change your clock makes it easier for most travelers, but a 4 am sunrise or a 4 pm sunset are things travelers should be aware of imho Hobbitschuster (talk) 11:57, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

The whole thing is a mess of special cases, from Blanc Sablon being on a different time zone from its neighbours to Lloydminster being entirely on Alberta time to bits of Florida using Central Time when the Eastern time zone stretches as far west as Thunder Bay. Then there's Saskatchewan and Arizona being DST-free zones, along with a few individual communities in northwestern Ontario. Certainly, Alaska should be several time zones (but, largely, is not). Good luck finding them all... K7L (talk) 14:43, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

So we should mention them in the country region and city pages, correct?Hobbitschuster (talk) 14:47, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

If we end up with Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon on Brazilian Standard Time (BRST, GMT-3) year-round or some such weirdness, yes, some of these are small enough to be addressed locally. K7L (talk) 14:51, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

I too think there should be a general description in the country articles and the exceptional towns and islands etc. (that prove the rule?) can be singled out at a lower level. Also, it's maybe not needed to list things like Wake Island.

For countries that should span several time zones but do not, like China or India, or simply insane examples (Vardø and Vigo with over 40° between them but both at CET); yes it can be mentioned that it's silly. Nevertheless, as a traveler there's nothing you can do but turn your watch to the time locals follow. ϒpsilon (talk) 17:42, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Traveller's clock

Swept in from the pub

I know this might be a little controversial, but i decided to give it a try. How about we add a clock face depicting the timeline of each country article? Hopefully, this would help the many few who visit this site. Arep Ticous 15:59, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, no. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 16:15, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Arepticous, I don't understand what you mean by "timeline" here. Can you explain, or illustrate what you are proposing? Ground Zero (talk) 16:44, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

My first reaction is that it probably doesn't sound like something I'd want to see in each country article, but as per Ground Zero, until I know why you want to do this and what the clock would depict and look like, I can't really pass judgment on the proposal. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:45, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Timeline of the article? Do you mean the article history? It's just a click away in the "View history" tab. --Ypsilon (talk) 18:53, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Do you mean time zone? If so, I could see the argument for putting the time zone at the top of each country article. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 19:17, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

They used to be, when the quickbox was part of the le(a)d(e). But now it's in Understand. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 19:20, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

That works only when there's just one time zone in a given country. What would we do with Russia? Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:22, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Exactly. I guess we could show a range, somehow? The idea [My interpretation of Arepticous] doesn't on the whole seem worth it, to me. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 19:25, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

We don't know that is the idea, until Arepticous clarifies, to be fair.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 20:27, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

I've adjusted my comment accordingly. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 20:28, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ A clockface is circular, since the time repeats every day, but a timeline is linear (what happened 3,000 years ago won't happen again). As said above, there isn't enough information in the proposal to truly judge its worth but on the face of it, it doesn't make sense nor would it probably add value. Gizza ^(roam) 21:55, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

True. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 22:00, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

@Ikan Kekek , DaGizza , ThunderingTyphoons!: sorry for replying late, I am suggesting that each country article will have any sort of clock which displays the time. For example... the time in New york is 7:30 AM and in Sri Lanka it is exactly five PM. And yes... @SelfieCity: By time line i meant time zone not the one related to history (Misuse of words :-)-) Arep Ticous11:31, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Knowing what time it is belongs in the Captain Obvious department. Philaweb (talk) 12:20, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

I don't agree it's obvious - at all. Despite being aware that east = later, and west = earlier, I don't know what time it is anywhere else in the world right now, aside from near parts of Europe. On the other hand, why does the traveller need to know what time it is right now in a destination they're reading about? I suppose it could be useful for phoning and emailing places of interest and businesses etc. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 12:58, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

It is quite obvious to me what the time is where I am, when I am there. I do not need to read Wikivoyage to find out what the time is. It is also obvious to me that most clocks in airports, ports and railway stations will show the local time when I arrive - I do not need Wikivoyage to tell me the obvious. Finally, most online electronics will update correct date and time when connected. Philaweb (talk) 15:37, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

And also to fix their watches to the right time. Arep Ticous 13:04, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

But users don't need to know the current time in whatever destination they're reading about. They're not there yet. Arepticous, I'm going to give you the same advice I gave you on your talk page. Focus on adding content to articles in mainspace rather than wasting your time with proposals like this that aren't going to go anywhere. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 13:55, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

I might also add that the infoboxes in the country articles already have information about the time zones. When a country spans several time zones, there's usually even a section in Understand explaining which time zone covers which parts of the country (e.g. United States of America#Time zones). And when you actually arrive at the destination, there are clocks at the airport, railway station, bus station etc. and when you land after a flight across time zones, they often tell you "ladies and gentlemen, welcome to X, local time is XXXX..." and if I remember correctly, if it has been an overnight flight even the day and date. Ypsilon (talk) 14:30, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

If the proposal is a clock that tells the current time (i.e., the time of day when I read the article), it won't work for technological reasons. Everyone sees the same copy of the page, so the clock would only show the local time at the time that the page was last edited. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:15, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Do not see a need. My smart phone displays in standby mode the local time and my home (base) time. The World Clock app on my laptop shows the current time of all the locations of people I work with during the day. The Last time I woke up in a hotel and had to go and ask the receptionist what the local time was, was a good 15 or more years ago. --Traveler100 (talk) 15:50, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

@AndreCarrotflower: I'm sorry, but i thought that this might be helpful for readers. I was thinking of something like the {{Digital clock}} template from wikipedia . I thought that this might help the user recognize the time zone he/she is in. @WhatamIdoing: Yes... it would be displaying local time of the country. Arep Ticous 17:16, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

That's fine and dandy. But listen. You got indefbanned at Wikipedia because of this kind of thing — because you kept trying to bite off more than you could chew without enough experience under your belt, and eventually it became disruptive. And I'm trying like hell to help prevent the same thing happening to you here. So please just take my advice before you get yourself into trouble, because I think you have the makings of a good contributor if you would just slow down and take your time to learn the ropes. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 17:30, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

@AndreCarrotflower: I know i said this many times before screwing up... but i can assure you that this time, i have surely understood, and will keep my activities balanced and helpful for this site. Arep Ticous 17:51, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Hopefully so. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 17:57, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Sorry to jump in so late, but I think we can give an overview of times zones in articles about large countries, and state the time zone for small countries that have only one time zone, which we already do in many articles. But I don't think we need a clock that tells the current time. Conference calls with people in different time zones goes beyond our scope, and every time I've been on a flight, they always announce the local time at the destination, so people aren't realistically going to refer to WV for that. The dog2 (talk) 19:28, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

• In future, let's help Arepticous to be a better contributor by not paying too much attention to ideas like this one. I'll do my best to keep out myself in future. Agreed? --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 20:35, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

When I am planning a trip, I occasionally find that I have to phone the destination to make reservations, as not everything can be booked online. However these days this is rare - for my last 3 week trip I only had to book one shuttle bus by phone. A destination clock could be a small help, but implementing this would be a massive job - this is not something that we should do unless we could be 100% sure that it was always correct in every country and the WP Digital Clock template doesn't appear to be used on any articles. If I want to check the time somewhere I use world time server. AlasdairW (talk) 21:14, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

@SelfieCity: Thanks Arep Ticous 09:55, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Time zones

Swept in from the pub

If a country has several time zones for different regions (like Canada, Russia or the United States of America), should we mention the time zone for different regions? Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 03:50, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

For instance, New England, Mid-Atlantic, most of Florida, and the eastern sections of the Midwest and the South observe the Eastern Standard Time (EST), but I found no information regarding the zone in the respective regions. This is somewhat problematic for the Americans who travel from the west coast to the east coast and need to change their watches there. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 03:55, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Sure. It can be added to "Understand". Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:00, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

@Sbb1413: you can take a look at Broken Hill on how to cover timezones. Broken Hill is a town in the Australian state of New South Wales but is on the western end of the state away from most of the population, and instead has the same timezone as South Australia. Gizza ^(roam) 04:27, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

You may want to also mention "Daylight Savings Time", noting any localities that differ from neighboring regions (for example, Arizona). Mrkstvns (talk) 13:57, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Should the time zone containing the capital be bolded or otherwise prominently marked, for countries and other political entities? JsfasdF252 (talk) 21:00, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

For the small minority of countries with multiple timezones, you mean? I don't think so. The capital city isn't necessarily the place that the traveler cares about. If you have a section like New South Wales#Time zone or a list, then you might mention that as part of the description of each time zone. "Some Region, which is where Capital City and the beaches are, uses UTC" is easier for the reader to understand than just "Some Region uses UTC". WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:38, 29 February 2024 (UTC)