Today's useless fact - What time zone applies at the North and South Poles?

Time zones are determined by lines of longitude, so the system falls apart where the lines meet at the poles. More importantly, the poles don't experience daytime and nighttime the way the rest of the planet does. Each pole gets six months of daylight and six months of darkness -- which makes for one really long day. Both the North and South Poles officially use Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), also known as Greenwich Mean Time. This time zone is based on highly precise atomic clocks kept at various world laboratories.

UTC is mostly used for scientific observations. For example, the North Pole web cam run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration stamps its pictures with UTC numbers. However, people who work at or near the poles don't really live by UTC -- they often use the time zones of their nearest coworkers.

The North Pole is in the Arctic Ocean and doesn't have a permanent outpost. The nearest camps appear to use the time zone of Moscow, Russia.

The South Pole is on the Antarctic continent, and it's home to the Amundsen-Scott Station. The scientists and support staff who live there use the time zone of Christchurch, New Zealand. Check out the links in our North and South Poles Categories and Coordinated Universal Time category for more.