View the live map of US time zones below. The most familiar four major United States time zones are Eastern Standard Time (EST), Central Standard Time (CST), Mountain Standard Time (MST), and Pacific Standard Time (PST). However, the United States actually has six standard time zones. The other two are; Alaskan Standard Time (AKST) and the Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time (HST).
Below are the states that fall within the Central Standard Time Zone.
| Alabama (AL) | Mississippi (MS) | Nebraska (NE) |
| Arkansas (AR) | Missouri (MO) | North Dakota (ND) |
| Illinois (IL) | Oklahoma (OK) | Tennessee (TN) |
| Iowa (IA) | Wisconsin (WI) | Kentucky (KY) |
| Louisiana (LA) | South Dakota (SD) | Texas (TX) |
| Minnesota (MN) | Kansas (KS) |
Below are the states that fall within the Mountain Standard Time Zone.
| Idaho (ID) | Montana (MT) | Wyoming (WY) |
| Arizona (AZ) | New Mexico (NM) | |
| Colorado (CO) | Utah (UT) |
Below are the states that fall within the Pacific Standard Time Zone.
| Nevada (NV) | California (CA) | Idaho (ID) |
| Oregon (OR) | Washington (WA) |
The U.S. time zones were standardized in 1883 by the railroads to solve the chaos caused by every town keeping its own local time, which made scheduling trains nearly impossible. Before that, there were over 300 local time zones across the country, each based on the sun’s position. The railroads divided the country into four time zones, bringing order to the system, and in 1918, Congress passed the Standard Time Act, officially adopting the zones and introducing daylight saving time. This shift created the foundation for how we track time in the U.S. today.
Eastern Standard Time Zone (EST) is the latest time zone by the hour.
There are six different time zones: Eastern Time Zone, Central Time Zone, Mountain Time Zone, Pacific Time Zone, Alaska Time Zone and Hawaii-Aleutian Time Zone.
The time zone that covers the most states is the Eastern Standard Time Zone (EST)
The worldwide time zone system was developed in 1878.
Sir Sandford Fleming developed the system in 1878 that divided the world into 24 different time zones. Each time zone was separated by 15 degrees.