Time Zones in the United States of America – Map and Current Time
Due to a big territory of USA this country has always been divided into several time zones, but their exact number is often confused. The main reason of it is some changes that have occurred during the history of US, as well as the existence of several different classifications.
What does the time zone mean?
In general a time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time. It is necessary for different purposes including legal and often tends to follow the boundaries between countries.
Standard time zones are 15 degrees of longitude wide.
Nevertheless, there are many large countries in the world where several time zones operate at once. USA is one of them.
What is the time zone in the US?
The United States covers several time zones at once, so there is no common time for all states and US territories. Formally US time zone is from UTC–4 to UTC–12, but it also contain UTC+12 and UTC+10. The time zone map of United States is below:
How many time zones in the USA?
The USA was originally divided into 4 standard time zones. At present the continental United States is still divided into such quantity of zones:
| Time Zone | Abbreviation | Offset |
| Pacific Time | PT | UTC -8:00 / -7:00 |
| Mountain Time | MT | UTC -7:00 / -6:00 |
| Central Time | CT | UTC -6:00 / -5:00 |
| Eastern Time | ET | UTC -5:00 / -4:00 |
However, according to the law there are 9 official time zones in total. If to add the uninhabited atolls of Baker Island (AoE) and Wake Island (WAKT) to the official time zones count, we will get 11 time zones in the US at all.
What are the US time zones?
Due to US law there are 9 standard time zones in the USA and its surrounding areas. Here they are:
As we’ve earlier told Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific time zones belong to the contiguous US.
Such time zones as Alaska and Hawaii–Aleutian are zones used in states beyond the contiguous US, while the last 3 time zones are used in US territories (Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands refer to Atlantic time zone; American Samoa is in Samoa Time Zone; Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands are situated in Chamorro Time Zone.
If you’ve seen somewhere the question “What are the 6 time zones in the USA?”, don’t be confused. In this case, all time zones mentioned above are meant, except for those, which refer not to states but to US territories. These 6 time zones are: Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific, Alaska and Hawaii–Aleutian.
Where is the Eastern time zone?
Eastern (ET) is time zone of the US which covers almost 20 states: Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, D.C., West Virginia.
Standard time there is UTC−05:00, while DST (Daylight saving time) is UTC−04:00. You also can see exact time in exact state or city. For example, what time is in New York.
In addition a time zone map partially includes Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee.
Where is the Central time zone?
Central time (CT) is used in a lot of US states. Among them Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma and Wisconsin. In addition to them, the following states are partially covered: Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas.
This US time zone is situated so that the DST there is UTC−05:00. The standard time in these states is UTC−06:00.
To look for this time zone by map, just see below:
Where is the Mountain time zone?
Mountain time zone (MT) consists of Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. It also covers Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, but only partly.
Mountain time zone map is here:
Where is the Pacific time zone?
Pacific (PT) is one another time zones of US which completely covers two states: California and Washington. In addition Idaho, Nevada and Oregon are partially included to it.
What time is in this time zone? UTC−07:00 is DST, while UTC−08:00 is the standard time there.
Here you can see the map with time zone PT:
Where the other states are situated?
Among the unmentioned states there are also:
- This state has so large territory so that it is located in two time zones at the same time. Most of Alaska is in the time zone with the same name. Alaska Time Zone doesn’t cover only the western Aleutian Islands which are situated in Hawaii-Aleutian Time Zone.
- Together with Alaska’s Aleutian Islands this state observes Hawaii-Aleutian Time.
Alaska Time Zone map as well as the location of Hawaii-Aleutian Time Zone is here:
Where the US territories are situated?
There are 3 time zones covering US territories:
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Atlantic Time Zone.
Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands belong to this time zone. The location of them is on the map of Atlantic Time Zone.
-
American Samoa Time Zone.
Obviously, American Samoa belongs to this time zone. In addition, Samoa Time Zone covers Midway Islands and such uninhabited islands as Jarvis, Palmyra and Kingman Reef. The map of American Samoa Time Zone shows its location:
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Chamorro Time
Zone (earlier called Guam Time Zone).
The last two US territories, we’ve not mentioned yet, are Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. They are both located within Chamorro Time Zone.
Chamorro Time Zone (Guam Time Zone) map is below:
What time is in USA?
As there are a lot of different time zones in America (USA), here you can see the time in the biggest US cities:
The time in New York, NY (Eastern time zone)
The time in Chicago, IL (Central time zone)
The time in Denver, CO (Mountain time zone)
The time in Los Angeles, CA (Pacific time zone)
Which states are split into 2 time zones?
Usually just a small portion of the divided state is located in a different time zone (not with the rest of the state). But there are also such cases when the state is nearly cut in half by the time zones (South Dakota, Kentucky and Tennessee are among there states).
Let’s see which states have two time zones at once:
- Pacific & Mountain time zones are operating in two states at the same time: in Idaho and Oregon. The majority of their lands are in the Pacific time zone, but small portions of them still refer to Mountain time.
- Mountain & Central time zones divide among themselves the territories of such states as Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Texas.
- Central & Eastern time zones also divide 5 states: Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee.
- Alaska & Hawaii-Aleutian time zones which are the time zones for the largest state in the country Alaska. It was already mentioned earlier, but it is necessary to say that the Alaska time zone, covers almost every piece of the state. Only the Aleutian Islands and St. Lawrence Island are in the Hawaii-Aleutian time zone.
We hope that now you know everything you were interested in about time zones for the US.