mapsDay 27 – Boundaries – 14 States Split by Different Timezones!

Day 27 – Boundaries

Challenge Description: Map lines of division—political, physical, ecological, or conceptual. Explore the meaning and impact of a dividing line, real or perceived.

My Submission

You might know the US has multiple timezones—to be exact, 4 timezones (Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific) in the contiguous states. But did you know that individual states can span different timezones? Since the US is a federal country where many policies are state-based and vary by state, I assumed each state would have a single timezone.

However, by mapping the timezone boundaries, we can see that 14 states are actually split across 2 different timezones!

Click here to view high-quality PDF ⬆️

Further Ideas

These states end up in two different time zones simply because the federal government tries to match time zones to where people actually live and work — so the dividing lines follow economic ties, commuting patterns, and local preferences rather than clean state boundaries.

For example, most of Indiana is on Eastern Time, but the counties near Chicago use Central Time because daily life there, commutes, business hours, and media—are all tied to Chicago, not the rest of the state.

What I want to do later is look at what’s happening around these boundaries, like mapping income levels on each side to see if the timezone split also reflects differences in communities.

References

• Source Data:

  • US County Data – US Census Bureau

  • Timezones – Timezone Boundary Builder

  • Wikipedia: Time in the United States

Made by Matt Zhu for the #30DayMapChallenge.