Time Difference Between United States and North Korea

The time difference between the United States (US) and North Korea is 13 hours as per the difference between their time zones. This means that North Korea is 13 hours ahead of the United States. The US is the westernmost country which is also known as America. North Korea which is officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), is located in East Asia.

While, as mentioned there are six time zones in the US, North Korea has only one time zone. Interestingly, it changed its time zone in 2018, in order to align it with South Korea. Earlier, there was a time difference of 30 minutes between both the counties.

Time Zones In The United States

There are over six time zones in the US. Washington DC is the capital of the US. The capital city of the country follows the Eastern Daylight Time which is 5 hours behind Greenwich Mean Time.

Offset	Time Zone	Name	City
UTC -5	CDT	Central Daylight Time	Chicago
UTC -6	MST	Mountain Daylight Time	Denver
UTC -7	MST	Mountain Standard Time	Phoenix
UTC -7	PDT	Pacific Daylight Time	Los Angeles
UTC -8	ADT	Alaska Daylight Time	Anchorage
UTC -10	HAST	Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time	Honolulu

Time Zone in North Korea

North Korea’s capital is Pyongyang. North Korea has only a one-time zone which is called Korea Standard Time in short KST, which is +9 hours ahead of the  UTC.

Offset	Time Zone	Name	City
UTC +9	KST	Korean Standard Time	Pyongyang

How Time Difference is Calculated?

There are over 360 imaginary lines around the earth that are longitudes and these longitudes are called degrees. Greenwich near London has a 0-degree passing through it, which is considered standard. Other times zones are calculated according to this. Also, the time difference between each longitude is 4 minutes.

So, in order to calculate the time difference between two countries, let’s explore the following formula. If it is 12 noon at Greenwich, the 0 degrees standard for other time zones, it should be 12:04 at 1 degree as each degree has a 4 minutes time gap. The standard meridian in North Korea is 135 degrees. So, the formula for calculating the time difference between Greenwich and North Korea would be 135×4.

Why do we have different time zones?

Because each country has different rules! No. The earth rotates on its own axis and because of this rotation, different parts of the earth receive sunlight at different times. this causes morning, noon, evening, and night. 

Supposedly, if all the countries had one time zone, this would result in the timing of the day differing at all the places. This would cause major inconvenience. Considering these issues, researchers divided the earth into 24 time zones as per the earth’s rotation around the sun.

The earth completes a rotation of 360 degrees on its own axis in 24 hours. This means in one hour, the earth shifts by 15 degrees. Because of this the planet is segregated into 24 sections or time zones. Each section or region is over 15 degrees wide and has a specific standard time.