What Causes ‘Time Zones’ and How Did They Come to Be?

Imagine Earth is like a giant clock, and everyone wants to know what time it is. But if you live on one side of the planet and your friend lives on the other, you might be thinking about breakfast while they’re sleeping, that’s why we have time zones!

People used to all follow the same time, like the sun in their city, but as travel got faster, people started getting confused. That’s when someone said, ‘Let’s divide the Earth into chunks so each chunk has its own time!’

There are 24 main time zones around the world, one for every hour in a day. Each zone follows the sun’s path over that part of the Earth, which helps people know when to go to bed or get up.