Time waits for nobody.
The general geographic distribution of time zones is based on the general concept of dividing the world into zones of equal time following a 24-hour day around the world. In theory, this means that there are 12 time zones of 15° width in which each differs by one hour’s time difference.
The cartogram shows time zones from the perspective of an equal-population projection – a gridded population visualisation where each small area is proportional to the population living there. The map highlights how geopolitical considerations have an effect on the impact that time has on people and the functioning of the world. Globalisation is far from having resulted in a compression of space and time. On the contrary, time defines our contemporary world because it has put a new meaning to the spaces of humanity, or, as Tennessee Williams describes it in The Glass Menagerie: ‘Time is the longest distance between two places.’ In an interconnected world, time is equally the longest distance between two people.
Read more about this map in our blog
