# The one time zone for all of Mainland China

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-one-time-zone-for-all-of-mainland-china/114073>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 14, 2002, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-one-time-zone-for-all-of-mainland-china/114073 "2002-06-14T18:39:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\
**Post date:** [June 14, 2002, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-one-time-zone-for-all-of-mainland-china/114073/1 "2002-06-14T18:39:56Z")

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If you look at a time zone map you’ll see that _all_ of mainland China has one single time zone. That would be equivalent to everyone in the U.S. agreeing to use Eastern Standard Time.

How do people in the western provinces, astronomically as much as three or four hours behind Beijing time, deal with this situation? Doesn’t that mean that they have to start their “day” literally in the middle of the night? Do stores and offices in the West tend to start and end their business day later, more or less in keeping with astronomical time, or do they have to stick to Beijing’s schedule?

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**Author:** ![altor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@altor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/altor)\
**Post date:** [June 14, 2002, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-one-time-zone-for-all-of-mainland-china/114073/2 "2002-06-14T19:09:27Z")

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I found some info [here](http://www.tripchn.com/DES/Facts_Xinjiang.htm) about how they do it in Xinjiang (a western province):

> [@](#):
>
> Officially, Beijing time applies; in practice, Xinjiang time is used haphazardly for meal times in hotels, bus departures etc. Xinjiang time is two hours behind Beijing time. Try and straighten out any confusion by asking whether the stated time is Beijing time or Xinjiang time . To cater to the time difference, government offices (including the post office and CITS) generally operate from 10 am to 1.30 pm and from 4 to 8 pm. Banking hours are generally 10 am to 7.30 pm, although most outside Urumqi usually shut the doors for several hours during lunchtime.

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**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\
**Post date:** [June 14, 2002, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-one-time-zone-for-all-of-mainland-china/114073/3 "2002-06-14T22:53:53Z")

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The Han Chinese aren’t very concerned about the inconvenience to barbaric minorities. Anyway, Peiching is the centre of the world. Why would anyone want to be on a different clock?

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**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2002, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-one-time-zone-for-all-of-mainland-china/114073/4 "2002-06-15T00:33:41Z")

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Everyone copes with the official Beijing time and the unofficial local time. I remember being in Lhasa in the summer and seeing stars outside at 8:00 am and it getting dark around midnight. i think 10:00 am was when they started their official kind of day

Conversely, every one in China queries about how confusing it must be to have different time zones.

The bulk of the Chinese population live in what would be an hour’s difference in the US I think. It’s not that far from the east coast to Sichuan.