Smallest Multiple Time Zone Countries

Sometimes I come up with a simple question and I think I’ll get, and even want, a simple answer. Writing these Twelve Mile Circle articles is a lot easier when I’m able to come to a conclusion quickly. Then I can move on with my weekend. Other times the story gets a lot more complicated, like today. I wanted to know the smallest country with more than one time zone. Simple, right? Not so fast. Things turned convoluted very quickly.


Federated States of Micronesia

Sunset on Chuuk. Photo by  Matt Kieffer; (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Neiwe, State of Chuuk, Federated States of Micronesia

I supposed, technically, that honor should go to the Federated States of Micronesia. Its land area covered only 702 square kilometres (271 square miles) split into two time zones. For purposes of my little quest I considered land area only. Who really cared about water? Nobody lived on the water except for a few passing boats and they could follow whatever time they wanted to observe. So I looked at land area. Micronesia had the least land of any multiple time zone country.

However, this nation didn’t include any time zones crossing over land as one would observe in larger countries. FSM stretched 2,700 km (1,678 mi) across the Pacific Ocean along the Caroline Islands archipelago. Two of its states, Yap and Chuuk observed Coordinated Universal Time +10:00 (UTC+10:00). The other two, Kosrae and Pohnpei, observed UTC+11:00. Half of its hundred thousand citizens lived on Chuuk (map).

FSM seemed like a bit of an artificial creation, controlled by Portugal and then Spain until Spain’s defeat in the Spanish–American War. Spain then sold the Caroline Islands to Germany who lost them to Japan as a result of the First World War. Japan held onto the islands until its defeat in the Second World War. Then it became a United Nations Trust Territory administered by the United States. Finally the Federated State of Micronesia gained its independence in 1986 in a Compact of Free Association with the U.S.

In spite of its arbitrary origin and its crazy geographic spread, I supposed it still met the definition of the smallest nation with more than one time zone. That didn’t really leave me satisfied, though.


Cyprus

Cyprus. Photo by Dan Nevill; (CC BY-ND 2.0)
National Flag of Cyprus

Cyprus also seemed problematic. The nation consisted of a single land mass, an island in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. Two time zones definitely existed there in a manner of speaking. However that occurred only because of Northern Cyprus.

Cyprus gained its independence from the United Kingdom in 1960. The island included significant Greek and Turkish settlements so establishing sovereignty required skillful negotiations. This resulted in a tripartite treaty between the UK, Greece and Turkey called the Zürich and London Agreement. Then, in 1974, a military junta staged a coup intending to unite Cyprus with Greece. Turkey responded with force, invading the island and seizing about a third of it. Turkey established Northern Cyprus and evicted about two hundred thousand Greek Cypriots. The international community, with the exception of Turkey, did not and still does not recognize the sovereignty of Northern Cyprus.

Nonetheless, the Turkish army stationed in Northern Cyprus, created a de facto situation that split the island. Both sides established their capital in Nicosia (map), on separate sides of a U.N. buffer zone.

Every other nation may claim that a single government covers the entirety of Cyprus and the Cypriot flag may show a unified nation, however Turkish troops enforced a different reality. Cyprus observs time zone UTC+02:00. Northern Cyprus follows UTC+03:00, the same as Turkey. Half of the year, during the summer, they follow the same time because Cyprus observes Daylight Saving Time and Northern Cyprus does not.

Bottom line, if only a single sovereign Cyprus existed without a de facto Northern Cyprus, only one time zone would exist there.


Chilé

Punta Arenas Chile. View across the city. Photo by denisbin; (CC BY-ND 2.0)
Punta Arenas, Chile

Alright, so I still wanted to find the smallest contiguous nation with more than one time zone. I didn’t want something with a bunch of far-flung islands and I didn’t want something arising out of an international dispute. Chilé seemed to be the next best solution.

I wouldn’t actually call Chilé a “small” nation. It ranked 37th in size with a land area of 743,812 square km (287,187 sq miles). Even so, one would expect something fairly large geographically to justify more than a single contiguous time zone. Chilé,by the way, also had a third time zone for Easter Island although I ignored it for this purpose.

Most of Chilé, both by land and people, fell within UTC-04:00. Its southern portion, the Region of Magallanes and Chilean Antarctica observed UTC-03:00. This included the provinces of Última Esperanza, Magallanes, Tierra del Fuego, and Antártica Chilena. Looking at the map, that made sense.

Much of Chilé followed a narrow north-south alignment along the western cost of South America. However it curved distinctly eastward at its southern tip. There it hugged the bottom of Argentina, with a small portion even touching the South Atlantic Ocean. Most of the people of this region lived near Punta Arenas deep within that southeastern curve. It meant that the preponderance of people of the Magallanes Region would be inconvenienced if they followed the same time zone as the rest of Chilé.

This actually happened until fairly recently, with the Magallanes Region making the time zone switch on May 14, 2017.


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7 responses to “Smallest Multiple Time Zone Countries”

  1. Michael Avatar

    A look at the wikipedia article List of time zones by country suggests a few more possible answers which are smaller in area than Chile, but have other problems that make them seem like “less good” answers:

    – most of Ukraine observes UTC+2 with European daylight savings time rules (as would make sense for the longitude of Kiev at 30.5 E), but Crimea (which is not particularly far to the east – Sevastopol is at 33.5 E) observes UTC+4 year-round (“Moscow time”,). This is due to the Russian occupation and it’s hard to imagine this being the situation long-term – I would imagine that as the international situation gets resolved Crimea will either follow Moscow time or Kiev time depending on how it’s resolved. The time zone change is definitely political, see e. g. this Washington Post article on the shift in March 2014 – so the situation is basically analogous to the Cyprus one.
    – most of Papua New Guinea observes UTC+10 but the easternmost island, Bougainville Island, observes UTC+11. This is an island but not particularly far-flung.

  2. Ross FInlayson Avatar
    Ross FInlayson

    “Chile” does not have an accent over the “e” – certainly not in English-language text, and apparently not even in Spanish-language text, at least according to the official Chilean government web site: http://www.gob.cl/

  3. Ross FInlayson Avatar
    Ross FInlayson

    Also, New Zealand has two time zones. Most of the country observes UTC+12 (or UTC+13 in Summer). However, the Chatham Islands (far to the east of New Zealand’s South Island – but still officially part of the country) observe the strange time zone UTC+12:45 (or UTC+13:45 in Summer).

  4. Peter Avatar

    If things had worked out differently Chuuk might barely exist today let alone have half of the country’s population. When the atomic bomb was under development in 1944, the Manhattan Project’s planning committee drew up a list of potential targets should the device ever work. High on the list was Chuuk (then more commonly spelled Truk), as it was the site of a huge Japanese naval base. By the time the bomb was ready, however, the base had been rendered largely useless due to conventional bombings and it was no longer a suitable target.

  5. Joe Avatar
    Joe

    Off topic, but I was using Google Maps to try and check traffic conditions for routes out of South Florida in advance of Hurricane Irma. Instead of finding slow traffic, I found what I believe is the new US record for an old article (https://www.howderfamily.com/blog/longest-distance-hour/). I’ve barely played with trying to manipulate the distances, but I was able to come up with exactly 74 miles for a 1 hour travel time (link below). Here’s hoping the freeway continues to flow that fast and everyone in Florida and the various islands are safe from Irma in the coming days.

    https://www.google.com/maps/dir/26.5558508,-80.0697455/27.4645698,-80.4171716/@27.4653496,-80.41795,16.25z/data=!4m2!4m1!3e0

  6. Jon Avatar
    Jon

    Kiribati has three time zones, including the “latest” time in the world: UTC+14.
    Also, Chile now has three time zones, since Easter Island is on UTC-5.

  7. Francisco Avatar
    Francisco

    Ecuador is some 280k sq km and has two times zones: continental (UTC-5) and Galápagos (UTC-6)

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