Which State Is in Which Time Zone? The Map, Explained
Ask someone which time zone Florida is in and they will say Eastern — and they will be wrong for half the Panhandle. Ask about Texas and they will say Central — and they will be wrong for El Paso. The United States has only six time zones for fifty states, but fourteen states are split between two of them, and the line almost never runs where you expect it to. This guide walks the map from west to east, zone by zone, and lists every split state with the exact place the line runs — so you can answer “which state is in which zone” without guessing.
The Six Time Zones, West to East
There are six time zones covering the 50 states, and they run in a neat order across the map — with one catch. Hawaii-Aleutian Time (UTC−10) covers Hawaii and the far western Aleutian Islands of Alaska. Alaska Time (UTC−9) covers most of Alaska. Pacific Time (UTC−8) covers Washington, Oregon, California and Nevada, plus the northern panhandle of Idaho. Mountain Time (UTC−7) covers Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona, plus western strips of the plains states. Central Time (UTC−6) covers the great middle of the country, from North Dakota down to Texas and east to Illinois and Alabama. Eastern Time (UTC−5) covers the East Coast and the south-east, from Maine down to Florida and west to Ohio and Michigan. Learn the six in that order and you have the skeleton of the whole map. The catch is that the borders between them do not follow state lines — they follow county lines, rivers and trade routes, which is how fourteen states ended up with two zones each.
| Time zone | Standard offset | Example states |
|---|---|---|
| Hawaii-Aleutian | UTC−10 | Hawaii, western Aleutians |
| Alaska | UTC−9 | Alaska (most of it) |
| Pacific | UTC−8 | California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada |
| Mountain | UTC−7 | Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico |
| Central | UTC−6 | Texas, Illinois, Minnesota, Alabama |
| Eastern | UTC−5 | New York, Florida, Ohio, Georgia |
The 14 Split States
Fourteen states are split between two time zones, set by federal boundaries under 49 CFR Part 71, and no state has more than two. Older lists that say thirteen are out of date. The fourteen fall into four groups. Five are Eastern/Central: Florida, where the Panhandle west of the Apalachicola River is Central and the rest is Eastern; Indiana, where the north-west corner near Chicago and the south-west near Evansville are Central; Kentucky, where the western half including Bowling Green and Paducah is Central; Michigan, where four Upper Peninsula counties bordering Wisconsin — Gogebic, Iron, Dickinson and Menominee — are Central; and Tennessee, where Nashville and Memphis are Central and Knoxville and Chattanooga are Eastern. Five are Central/Mountain: Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota, all split down their western side, and Texas, where only El Paso and Hudspeth counties are Mountain and the other 252 counties are Central. Three are Pacific/Mountain: Idaho, where the northern panhandle is Pacific; Nevada, where the eastern strip around West Wendover is Mountain; and Oregon, where the eastern strip is Mountain. And Alaska spans two of its own zones: most of the state is Alaska Time, while the Aleutian Islands west of 169°30′ W are Hawaii-Aleutian Time. Kentucky, Tennessee and South Dakota are cut almost in half, while Florida, Texas and Indiana only lose a small corner — so the size of the split tells you nothing on its own. What matters is the city, not the state.
Why the Line Runs Where It Does
Time zones came with the railroads. Before 1883 every town kept its own local solar time, and a train timetable was a mess of conflicting clocks; the railroads imposed four standard zones, and the federal government later took over the boundaries. The lines were drawn along county borders and trade routes, not straight lines on a map, because the point was to keep people who work and shop together on the same clock. That is why Michigan’s four Central counties are the four pressed against Wisconsin: their daily life — work, school, shopping — runs across the state line, so they kept Wisconsin’s time when most of the Upper Peninsula switched to Eastern in 1973. It is why the Florida Panhandle is Central: Pensacola trades with Mobile, Alabama, not with Miami. And it is why the boundaries still move occasionally, when a county petitions to switch sides because its economy points the other way. The line is a human decision, not a geographical one, and that is exactly why it makes such good quiz questions: you cannot derive it from the shape of the state, you have to know it.
The Arizona Exception
Arizona is not a split state — the whole state is Mountain Time — but it behaves like one twice a year, and it is the best trap in the whole subject. Arizona does not observe daylight saving time, so while the rest of the Mountain zone springs forward in March, Arizona stays on Mountain Standard Time all year. The exception inside the exception is the Navajo Nation, the large Native American reservation that covers north-eastern Arizona (and parts of Utah and New Mexico): the Navajo Nation does observe daylight saving, so for half the year the reservation is an hour ahead of the rest of Arizona. Drive across northern Arizona in July and your clock can change without you crossing a state line. Any question that asks “does Arizona observe daylight saving?” with a flat yes or no is a bad question — the true answer always names the exception.
Daylight saving itself is simple once you see the rule: in the places that observe it, clocks spring forward one hour at 2:00 a.m. on the second Sunday in March and fall back one hour at 2:00 a.m. on the first Sunday in November — in 2026, March 8 to November 1. Hawaii is the other state that sits it out entirely: it stays on Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time (UTC−10) all year and never changes its clocks, so the gap between Honolulu and New York is five hours in winter and six in summer. The western Aleutian Islands share Hawaii’s zone but do observe daylight saving, which makes Hawaii-Aleutian the only zone whose two halves behave differently. Two states skip it, one state half-skips it, and the rest of the country moves together — that is the whole daylight-saving map.
How to Remember It
Do not try to memorise fifty states. Memorise six zones, fourteen splits, and a handful of city pairs. Learn the zones west to east, learn the fourteen as three groups of five, five and three plus Alaska, and then anchor each split with one city on each side of the line: Pensacola vs Miami, Nashville vs Knoxville, El Paso vs Houston, Louisville vs Paducah, Chicago’s Indiana suburbs vs Indianapolis. One pair per split state is enough, because the quiz asks about cities — and once you know which side of the line each city sits on, the state takes care of itself. Test yourself with the map above covered, then uncovered, and play the quiz until the fourteen stop feeling like exceptions and start feeling like the map itself.
How many states are split between two time zones?
Fourteen. Five are Eastern/Central, five are Central/Mountain, three are Pacific/Mountain, and Alaska spans Alaska Time and Hawaii-Aleutian Time. Older sources saying thirteen are out of date.
Does Arizona observe daylight saving time?
Most of Arizona does not — but the Navajo Nation inside Arizona does. There is no flat yes-or-no answer.
Which time zone is Florida in?
Both. Most of Florida is Eastern Time, but the Panhandle west of the Apalachicola River, including Pensacola, is Central Time.
How many time zones cover the 50 states?
Six: Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific, Alaska, and Hawaii-Aleutian — counted by federal boundary, not by the clock on the wall.
Six zones, fourteen splits, one exception — and now you know where every line runs. The map stops being a puzzle once you read it this way: the zones run west to east, the splits follow trade and county lines, and the city in the question is always the clue. Test yourself on all of it now, split states and Arizona trap included. And if you want to practise the states themselves — not just their time zones — the free us states quiz map game is the best place to do it.