After living in China for 5 years, I always thought it was interesting that China only has one Timezone. On the news today, a BBC reporter stated that the reason is because the royal family like to travel and would use the un-adjusted time to hunt early but still have time left in the day.
What is the story behind their timezone?
On the news today, a BBC reporter stated that the reason is because the royal family like to travel and would use the un-adjusted time to hunt early but still have time left in the day.
That doesn't seem right, or at least, not the whole story.
As a matter of fact, China was divided into five time zones during the early part of the 20th century. These were (from east to west):
Each was staggered one hour apart. This situation persisted from 1918 to 1949, except for a brief period during the Second Sino-Japanese War, when Kansu-Szechuan Time (the central time zone for China) became standard across all of China.
It was only after the Communist Revolution when the government established a single time zone across all of China in 1949. This was known as Beijing Time, and it was set to UTC +8. This was done by the People's Republic, so I don't see any connection to Royal families.
Today, officially, China only has a single time zone. However, in the westernmost Xinjiang Autonomous Region, there is a local Urumqi time, which is UTC +6 (so 2 hours behind Beijing Time). It's not recognized by the Chinese government, however, local people (including schools, businesses and local government offices) all follow Urumqi time.
