I know this isn't travel-related, so please forgive me, but there's something I've never heard explained. When the news announces the time in different parts of the world, why is it that Afghanistan is a half-hour off?

?!?

Each country is allowed to determine its own time pattern, and divide up its country's time zones in any way it wishes. China, for instance, has its entire country on one time, even though it's large enough to encompass four time zones.

Afghanistan just happens to have chosen its time to be thirty minutes different from most of the rest of the world. No reason it can't; I suppose it's just trying to show its independence from the rest of the world.

It isn`t just Afghanistan. India has some time zones that are also 1/2 hour off. You could go from one time zone to the next and it would be a thirty minutes difference in time.

Interesting. I never knew that.

Thanks for your responses! Everytime I hear the time in Afghanistan, it makes me chuckle. It reminds me of Laugh-in when Burbank was always at some odd hour.

well we learnt something today too, so thanks for that!

And Nepal is 15 minutes off of India. So, if it is 10:30 AM in Varanasi, it is 10:45AM in Kathmandu.

If you look closely, you will see that they are actually 1000 yrs AND 30 mins off.

timekeeper,
hahahhahhha funny. yet soo true.

Thanks for the chuckle, Timekeeper.

You actually don't have to go so far afield to find someplace that's "off" half an hour from the rest of the world: Newfoundland is also staggered half an hour, i.e. when it's 12:00 in New York, it's 1:00 in Nova Scotia and 1:30 in Newfoundland. (I'm not a Canadian, but I play one on TV).

And you also stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night...

As a follow up to timekeepers joke,
the first time we landed on Molokai the pilot announced "Welcome to Molokai where the local time is 1954"....Wasn't far from the truth.

The Old Hawaii feel and people sure were nice.
Aloha,
Kal