International Date Line

الشرح: The International Date Line (shown here as a solid line) is a specific meridian which roughly follows the meridian of longitude 180°. The International Date Line passes north–south between Russia and Alaska, through the Pacific Ocean including parts of Micronesia and Polynesia, and to the east of Australia/New Zealand before reaching the South Pole on Antarctica. The International Date Line marks the boundary where calendar dates change by one. Therefore, regions to the west of the International Date line are one calendar day ahead of regions to the east. The International Date Line does not always exactly follow the meridian of longitude 180°. This is partly to stop some territory of a country falling on the other side of the International Date Line than the rest of that country (the Aleutian Islands in the United States being a good example). Some countries also choose which side of the International Date Line they lie on. Samoa changed which side of the date line it lay on in 2011. At this point the International Date Line was moved to lie to the east of Samoa having previously passed to the west of Samoa. On the opposite side of the world the dashed line marks the prime meridian (the meridian of longitude 0°). This is a line that passes through the Royal Greenwich Observatory in the UK. All time zones are measure relative to Universal Time which is the zero point for all timezones. The time zones marked at the top of the diagram are the timezones in the shaded regions excluding the effects of daylight savings time.
المصدر: Maria Cristina Fortuna/IAU OAE

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