Bad Map Projection Time Zones
Bad Map Projection: Time Zones
Bad map projection #79: Time Zones Where each country should be, based on its time zone( s )
[A world map is shown divided and colored by political boundaries. There are many distortions, and especially Russia looks weird. Many countries have their name listed in a gray font and at the bottom below Australia there are two specialties mentioned for time zones which are not divided in full hours. One of these is a footnote used by other countries as well.]
[The labels are listed here in order of the "continents" as they come from top left to down right. Similarly within each continent's list the countries which are usually said to belong to a given continent (at least politically or partially, e.g. Greenland and Turkey in Europe) are listed in a similar reading order as accurately as possible.]
[North America. (Newfoundland, the most easterly part of Canada, is labeled with a star *):] Canada, *, United States, Mexico, Gua., Hon., Nic., C.R., Pan., Cuba, Haiti, Jam., D.R.
[South America:] Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, F.G., Suriname, Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, Par., Chile, Argentina, Uruguay
[Europe. (Russia is as the only country mentioned twice, the other place is over the central part in the Asia section):] Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Ireland, UK, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bel., Russia, Ger., Pol., Ukraine, France, It., Romania, Portugal, Spain, Bulgaria, Turkey
[Africa:] W.S., Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania, Sen., Mali, Niger, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Gb., Guin., B.F., S.L., Liberia, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Chad, Cam., C.A.R., S.S., Ethiopia, Somalia, E.G., Gabon, R. of Congo, Dem. Rep. of the Congo, Kenya, Angola, Zambia, Tanzania, Namibia, Bots., Zimb., Mozambique, Madagascar, South Africa
[Asia. (Russia is the only country mentioned twice, the other label is within the European border. The text written over Bhutan is unreadable in the image and marked with a question mark in this list):] Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran*, Oman, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan*, Taj., Pakistan, India*, Nepal*, ?, China, N.K.*, S.K., Japan, Ban., Bur.*, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines
[Oceania/Australia. (In Australia there is a star * in the middle of it above the name):] Malaysia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, *, Australia, New Zealand
[Below Australia there is an arrow pointing to the south coast and below that a footnote for the stars * used above:] UTC+8:45 (One small area)
*=Half-hour offset

Some countries and territories are missing from the map. Most of these omissions are undoubtedly deliberate, but some are likely mistakes.

This is the second comic in the series of Bad Map Projections and presents Bad map projection #79: Time Zones. It was first with this comic that it became a series. The series began a month earlier with 1784: Bad Map Projection: Liquid Resize (#107). It was followed almost three years later with 2256: Bad Map Projection: South America (#358).
This comic shows a map projection in which countries are placed according to the time zones that they fall under. It seems that Randall , being Randall, runs with the idea as he has made yet another map projection that is not only inaccurate, but utterly unusable, though less so than the previous one.
The first "Liquid Resize" was #107, while this comic features #79. Since the liquid resize was purely aesthetic, whereas this one at least conveys some meaningful information it makes sense that this projection is ranked higher.
Conceptually, the series is a comment on the fact that there is no perfect way to draw a map of the world on a flat piece of paper. Each one will introduce a different type of distortion, and the best projection for a given situation is sometimes very disputed. Randall previously explored 12 different projections in 977: Map Projections , and expressed his disdain for some types he sees as less efficient but whose users feel superior. None of them are really good as any 2D map projection will always distort in a way the spherical reality, and a map projection that is useful for one aspect (like navigation, geographical shapes and masses visualization, etc.) will not be so for all the others. Local maps of smaller areas can be quite accurate, but the idea of both these map projection comics is to map the entire globe on a flat surface.
Time zones are based on the way the Sun shines on the Earth, so these time zones, which are based on the sun's position in the sky, would best be divided by roughly longitudinal (North-to-South Pole) lines. However, this is not the case in practice, as the defined time zones tend to have very jagged boundaries, and furthermore some countries use a completely different time than the zones they are in, at least for some parts (see China ). Since Randall knows he cannot fix the boundaries of the time zones, he instead "fixes" the world by making a map appear to match up with the time zone system, as shown in this map , also posted in the trivia . This results in bizarre distortions such as the large, gum-like strands of Greenland (these are the towns of Danmarkshavn (UTC) and Ittoqqortoormiit (UTC-1), which use different time zones to the rest of the island) and three enormous gulfs in Russia (some time zones in Russia are only used in southern areas, leaving two-hour differences between some adjacent areas on the country's northern border).  See also this map with a time zone map overlayed the comic .
The effect of this map is to "punish" large countries with a single time zone - for instance, China, which uses UTC+8 across the whole country - and countries that share large time zones - for instance, almost all of Europe is packed into the Central European UTC+1 zone - by shrinking these down. Conversely, countries that use multiple time zones without filling them out are stretched out - for example, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Mongolia , as pointed out in the title text - as are slim countries that do not fill out the full width of their time zones but where their neighbors use different timezones so they have to fill the entire width of their time zone. For instance Finland (also mentioned in the title text) and the Baltic countries , who look huge because their western and eastern neighbors do not use the UTC+2 Eastern Europe time, and thus have to fill out the distance between the countries that are pushed to the zones on their east/west borders.
Other map projections distort countries this way as well, but based on their actual physical location as opposed to their position on imaginary time zones. The Mercator projection is infamous for distorting Greenland in this way, to the point that it appears to be larger than Africa despite being nowhere near the same size.
See the table below for lots more information on the comic, but here are some further details.
The map is imperfect for several reasons:
Randall attempts to preserve adjacency where possible - for instance, Chad and Sudan are neighbors even though Chad uses West Africa Time (UTC+1) and Sudan uses East Africa Time (UTC+3). Randall draws an extremely thin strand connecting the countries through Central/South Africa Time (UTC+2), even though no part of Chad or Sudan uses this time. Similarly, a thin strand of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan is shown projecting into the UTC+4 time zone in order to separate Russia and Iran, which do not really share a border. Worst of all is China, which has to have borders to several countries that do not share the single eastern time zone of east China, which the whole China is forced to use. A thin strand, resembling the Yangtze river, is shown passing through time zones that China does not use. This is the most complicated preservation of adjacency shown in the map.
There is no mention of daylight saving time - all countries shown are given the base winter time. Depending on the time of year, countries will shift around - around June, many northern hemisphere countries will move east, while some southern hemisphere countries will move east around December.
The map doesn't allow for half-hour time zones. (India, for instance, is on UTC+5.5) Instead, countries that use fractional time zones are shifted so they straddle the two time zones, and are then marked with an asterisk (*). This is also true of regions within countries, including the island of Newfoundland in Canada and a section in the center of Australia.
The only extra detail mentioned in the map is also for Australia. It is the UTC+8:45 time zone that is used only by 5 roadhouses covering a population of only a few hundred people.
There are several errors in the map, see below .
This sortable table includes all countries shown in the map, not just those are labeled, as well as the continents and some other regions are mentioned.
The countries or continents are mentioned approximately in reading order. If a country is not labeled with full name the abbreviation is in brackets behind the name. If the country is not labeled, labeled wrong or not even shown in the comic, there is a note after the name. Countries labeled with a footnote by an asterisk (*) are shown together with that asterisk at the name.
If a country has more than one time zone all are listed.
Bad map projection #79: Time Zones Where each country should be, based on its time zone( s )
[A world map is shown divided and colored by political boundaries. There are many distortions, and especially Russia looks weird. Many countries have their name listed in a gray font and at the bottom below Australia there are two specialties mentioned for time zones which are not divided in full hours. One of these is a footnote used by other countries as well.]
[The labels are listed here in order of the "continents" as they come from top left to down right. Similarly within each continent's list the countries which are usually said to belong to a given continent (at least politically or partially, e.g. Greenland and Turkey in Europe) are listed in a similar reading order as accurately as possible.]
[North America. (Newfoundland, the most easterly part of Canada, is labeled with a star *):] Canada, *, United States, Mexico, Gua., Hon., Nic., C.R., Pan., Cuba, Haiti, Jam., D.R.
[South America:] Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, F.G., Suriname, Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, Par., Chile, Argentina, Uruguay
[Europe. (Russia is as the only country mentioned twice, the other place is over the central part in the Asia section):] Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Ireland, UK, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bel., Russia, Ger., Pol., Ukraine, France, It., Romania, Portugal, Spain, Bulgaria, Turkey
[Africa:] W.S., Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania, Sen., Mali, Niger, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Gb., Guin., B.F., S.L., Liberia, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Chad, Cam., C.A.R., S.S., Ethiopia, Somalia, E.G., Gabon, R. of Congo, Dem. Rep. of the Congo, Kenya, Angola, Zambia, Tanzania, Namibia, Bots., Zimb., Mozambique, Madagascar, South Africa
[Asia. (Russia is the only country mentioned twice, the other label is within the European border. The text written over Bhutan is unreadable in the image and marked with a question mark in this list):] Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran*, Oman, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan*, Taj., Pakistan, India*, Nepal*, ?, China, N.K.*, S.K., Japan, Ban., Bur.*, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines
[Oceania/Australia. (In Australia there is a star * in the middle of it above the name):] Malaysia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, *, Australia, New Zealand
[Below Australia there is an arrow pointing to the south coast and below that a footnote for the stars * used above:] UTC+8:45 (One small area)
*=Half-hour offset

Some countries and territories are missing from the map. Most of these omissions are undoubtedly deliberate, but some are likely mistakes.
