The Prime Meridian. Where east meets west, where the world's clocks find their zero. Established by international agreement in 1884 at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, this invisible line cleaves the planet into hemispheres and gives every point on Earth its east-west address.
UTC +0:00The meridian of pharaohs and the Nile delta. Cairo sits at the hinge of Africa and Asia, where the ancient world measured time by the flooding of a river.
UTC +2:00The meridian of maritime trade routes. The Arabian Sea stretches eastward, where dhows once navigated by stars before chronometers existed.
UTC +4:00The meridian of the Bengal delta. One quarter of the way around the world from Greenwich. Here the Ganges and Brahmaputra converge.
UTC +6:00The meridian of the Middle Kingdom. Beijing Standard Time governs a nation spanning five geographical time zones, a single clock imposed on continental breadth.
UTC +8:00The meridian of the Southern Cross. Australia's eastern seaboard watches the sun rise before most of the inhabited world has finished sleeping.
UTC +10:00Here today becomes tomorrow. The International Date Line zigzags through the Pacific, an arbitrary boundary where the calendar resets. Cross eastward and gain a day. Cross westward and lose one. The paradox of measured time made geographic.
UTC +12:00 / -12:00The meridian of the last frontier. Alaska's vast emptiness stretches across longitudes that European nations parse into dozens of sovereign borders.
UTC -9:00The meridian of Pacific Standard Time. The west coast of North America, where the continent meets the ocean and the sun sets last in the contiguous states.
UTC -8:00The meridian of the Mississippi delta. Three-quarters around the world from Greenwich. The heart of Central Standard Time.
UTC -6:00The meridian of the Pampas and Patagonia. South America's eastern shoulder, where the Atlantic begins its crossing back toward Africa and Greenwich.
UTC -3:00The meridian of open ocean. No major landmass. Only the Azores and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, where tectonic plates diverge beneath the waves.
UTC -2:00