Interactive World Time Zone Map
Timezone Map is a free, interactive map of the world's time zones with live local times. Hover over any country to see the current time there, search for cities to build your own world clock, and instantly compare them against your own location. It's perfect for remote teams, travellers and anyone who juggles more than one clock.
What is Timezone Map and why is it useful?
Every region on the map is coloured by its current offset from UTC, so you can see the world's time zones at a glance. Move your cursor over any area and a tooltip shows the country, the day of the week, the live local time down to the second, and the UTC offset with its abbreviation (for example UTC+1 CET).
The map is paired with a world-clock board along the top. Search for a city and it is pinned both as a marker on the map and as a live card in the board. Each card shows how many hours ahead or behind that city is compared to a reference: by default your own location, or any city you choose. That makes it simple to answer everyday questions like "is it a reasonable hour to call the London office?" or "when do New York and Singapore both have working hours?" It's built for people who coordinate across time zones every day: distributed teams, traders following multiple markets, support staff, frequent flyers and long-distance families.
How to use the map
- Read the colours. Each colour is one current UTC offset; a border appears only where the offset actually changes.
- Hover a place to see its country, live local time, weekday and UTC offset.
- Search and pin cities from the bar at the top to add them to your world clock and drop a marker on the map.
- Set a home city with the ★ on any card to compare every other city against it; otherwise everything is compared to your own location.
- Switch 12/24-hour time with the clock toggle, and drag cards to reorder them.
- Come back later: your pinned cities and settings are saved in your browser.
Time zone basics
The world is divided into time zones so that clocks roughly match the sun: noon should fall near the middle of the day wherever you are. Each zone is defined as an offset from UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), the global reference clock. Places east of the Greenwich meridian are ahead of UTC (UTC+1, UTC+2, and so on) and places to the west are behind it (UTC-1, UTC-5, …).
In theory there are 24 one-hour zones, but the real world is messier: some regions use half-hour offsets like India at UTC+5:30, and a few use quarter-hour offsets like Nepal at UTC+5:45. Many places also observe daylight saving time (DST), moving their clocks forward an hour in spring and back in autumn to make better use of evening daylight. Altogether the world uses close to 40 different offsets at various points in the year.
Why are some countries split into several time zones?
There are two reasons a single country appears as more than one zone. The first is simple geography: large countries such as the United States, Russia, Canada and Australia span so much longitude that one clock would leave sunrise and sunset wildly out of step from one side to the other, so they are divided into multiple zones.
The second reason is history. Time zones in computers come from the IANA time zone database, where each zone (like America/Denver or America/Phoenix) represents a region that has shared exactly the same clock (including the same daylight-saving rules) since 1970. Two neighbouring areas that keep the same time today can still be listed as separate zones because they changed their clocks differently in the past. A classic example is Arizona, which stopped observing daylight saving decades ago: for half the year it matches the Mountain zone and for the other half it matches the Pacific coast, so it is tracked separately from its neighbours. Mexico, parts of Australia and several other places have similar quirks.
This map handles that automatically. Instead of drawing fixed lines, it groups regions by the offset they are using right now and recolours them as daylight saving starts and ends. So in summer you'll see Arizona take on the Pacific colour and split away from the rest of the Mountain zone, then rejoin it in winter. It's a live picture of how the world's clocks really behave.
Frequently asked questions
How many time zones are there in the world?
There are 24 main hourly time zones based on 15° bands of longitude, but in practice the world uses around 38 to 40 distinct offsets from UTC once you include half-hour zones (such as India at UTC+5:30) and quarter-hour zones (such as Nepal at UTC+5:45).
What is UTC?
UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) is the global reference time from which every time zone is defined as an offset, for example UTC-5 or UTC+8. It does not change with the seasons, so it is used as a fixed baseline for clocks around the world.
What is the difference between a time zone and a UTC offset?
A UTC offset is simply how many hours a place is ahead of or behind UTC right now. A time zone is a named region (such as America/New_York) that follows a particular set of rules over time, including when daylight saving starts and ends, so a single zone can use different offsets at different times of year.
Why doesn't Arizona observe daylight saving time?
Most of Arizona has opted out of daylight saving time because of its extreme summer heat, where an extra hour of evening daylight would mean more time in the hottest part of the day. As a result, in summer Arizona shares the same clock as the Pacific coast, and in winter it matches the Mountain zone.
Why do some countries have multiple time zones?
Large countries span enough longitude that a single clock would put sunrise and sunset at very different times across the country, so they are divided into several zones. Regions can also be split apart in time zone databases because they have different daylight-saving histories, even when they currently share the same offset.
Do the colours on the map change with daylight saving time?
Yes. Areas are coloured by their current UTC offset, so when a region starts or ends daylight saving its colour updates to match. For example, in summer Arizona takes on the Pacific colour, while the rest of the Mountain zone shifts one band.
How do I compare the time between two cities?
Search for each city to add it to the world-clock board. Every card shows the city's live local time and how many hours ahead or behind it is compared to your own location. Click the star on any card to make it the reference instead, and every other city is compared against it.
Is Timezone Map free to use?
Yes. Timezone Map is a free tool that runs entirely in your browser. Your pinned cities are saved locally on your own device so they are still there the next time you visit.
About the data
Time zone boundaries come from the open timezone-boundary-builder project, which is based on the authoritative IANA time zone database used by operating systems worldwide. Local times and offsets are computed live in your browser, so they always reflect the current daylight-saving rules.