Live Day & Night
The night overlay updates every 60 seconds using precise solar position math — no API required, fully computed in your browser.
World Time Map
An interactive map showing live local times, day & night regions, and time zones for cities worldwide. Click any city to see its current time, UTC offset, and time zone details.
Daytime
Night
Click any city on the map to see its local time and details here.
Pinned Cities
Click any city on the map, then pin it to compare times here.
What Is the World Time Map?
The World Time Map is a live, interactive visualization of Earth's current time zones overlaid with a real-time day and night boundary. As Earth rotates, the solar terminator — the line dividing daylight from night — moves westward at approximately 1,040 km/h. This map recalculates that boundary every 60 seconds so you always see which parts of the world are in daylight, twilight, or darkness right now.
Click any city marker to see its current local time, date, UTC offset, and time zone name. Use the search bar to jump to any location instantly, or pin multiple cities to compare their times side by side in the panel above.
City Time Popups
Click any dot to see a live clock for that city, showing local time, date, UTC offset, and full time zone name — updated every second.
Pin & Compare
Pin up to 8 cities to the comparison panel below the map. All pinned clocks update live so you can track multiple time zones at once.
How Time Zones Work
The Earth is divided into 24 primary time zones, each roughly 15 degrees of longitude wide — corresponding to one hour of time difference. In practice, political and geographic decisions mean real time zone boundaries are far more irregular than a clean 24-slice model suggests.
All time zones are defined as offsets from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Offsets range from UTC−12 (Baker Island) to UTC+14 (Line Islands, Kiribati). Some countries use half-hour or quarter-hour offsets — India (UTC+5:30), Iran (UTC+3:30), and Nepal (UTC+5:45) are the most well-known examples.
Frequently Asked Questions
How accurate is the day/night boundary on this map?
The terminator line is calculated from the Sun's current ecliptic longitude and declination, updated every 60 seconds. It accurately represents the idealized day/night boundary on a spherical Earth projected onto a flat map. It does not account for terrain elevation, atmospheric refraction, or civil vs. astronomical twilight distinctions.
What is UTC and why does the map use it as a reference?
UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) is the atomic-clock-based standard against which every time zone offset is defined. It replaced GMT in 1972 as the world's primary time reference. Using UTC as the anchor makes it straightforward to calculate any local time: UTC + the zone's offset = local time. Your computer's system clock synchronizes to UTC automatically.
Which country has the most time zones?
France spans 12 time zones when including its overseas territories — more than any other country. Russia covers 11 time zones across its mainland, the widest span of any single contiguous landmass. The United States covers 6 time zones across the continental states, Alaska, and Hawaii.
Why do India and Nepal use non-standard UTC offsets?
India uses UTC+5:30 so that a single national time zone places sunrise and sunset at reasonable hours across the country's roughly 30-degree east-west span. Nepal uses UTC+5:45 — deliberately different from India's offset — as a way of asserting national distinction while still compromising geographically.
Can I use this map to schedule international meetings?
Yes — pin the cities where your participants are located and compare their live times in the panel below the map. For more precise meeting planning with a time selector and overlap visualizer, use the Time Zone Converter or Time Difference Calculator.
Does Daylight Saving Time affect the times shown?
Yes. All times shown use the IANA time zone database via the browser's built-in Intl.DateTimeFormat API, which handles DST transitions automatically and accurately for every supported time zone.
Explore More TimezoneBudy Tools
The World Time Map works alongside the rest of TimezoneBudy's tool suite for a complete time zone reference experience.