Continents in the World

Regions of the world, continents of the planet Earth
There are seven continents in the world: Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, South America, Australia and Antarctica. Find out the current time in the desired country by selecting the appropriate continent from the table below.
Africa 57 countries Antarctica 4 countries Asia 51 countries Europe 53 countries North America 42 countries Oceania 28 countries South America 14 countries

Universal time. World time online

As you know, our planet Earth is constantly rotating and has a diameter of 12,742 kilometers and a surface area of 510 million square kilometers. So that entails some consequences.

Such characteristics of our planet determine time difference in various places of the Earth. For example, there is daytime in one part of the world, while there is a night in the other one.

A country with a relatively small area would probably have a single timezone, which means a uniform standard time all over the country. Large countries generally have several time zones established in order not to get people confused.

France, for example, has the largest number of time zones, there are 12 of them there. Russia has 11 time zones. 167 countries of the world have only one time zone.

In order to create a uniform system of time determination, our planet was figuratively divided into 24 sectors – 24 time zones.

Primary information about the continents on planet Earth

There are six continents on the planet Earth:

  • Eurasia (Europe + Asia) is the largest continent with an area of 54.6 million square kilometers;
  • Africa is the hottest continent on Earth with an area of 30.3 million square kilometers;
  • North America is the continent which has the most rugged coastline with multiple bays and islands. It covers an area of 24.4 million square kilometers;
  • South America is the wettest continent with plenty of rains and an area of 17.8 million square kilometers;
  • Australia is the flattest continent in the world with an area of 7.7 million square kilometers;
  • Antarctica is the southernmost and the coldest continent on Earth with an area of 14.1 million square kilometers.

Why are there only 24 time zones?

  • Because the Earth makes a complete rotation in 24 hours, and there are 24 hours in a day;
  • Every 15° longitude represents one hour's difference in time. Consequently, 15° multiplied by 24 make 360 degrees.

Nowadays exact time is regulated by Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Coordinated Universal Time was introduced instead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

There are 24 time zones in the world, which have offsets ahead or behind UTC. For example:

...etc.

It is important to note that UTC doesn’t change with a change of seasons. But if a time zone observes daylight saving time (or summer time), UTC time offset in summer would be different from UTC time offset in winter.

When daylight saving time is applied, local time changes.

Each country or region may switch to daylight saving at a different time.