this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2025
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It's about how time zones line up
Is it? Europe has three timezones, one of which extends well into Asia. Africa has four, one of which is West of Europe and doesn't overlap with it at all.
South America has three timezones, all of which overlap with North America (although North America does have a couple extra ones further to the East.
I hadn't heard the term or the timezone justification for it before. I'm not sure I see how the name is connected to the thing, despite having lived in several of the relevant "Eurafrican" timezones.
I'm not necessarily mad about it (although a quick google search tells me the term has some... problematic history). I'm mostly just surprised and curious to find out if it's just a German thing or more central Europeans go around saying "Eurafrica", too.
Noone really says Eurafrica outside of the specific context of timezones. And it is only used in the specific context of timezones because it is a quite apt term there when you look at a map of timezones.
Wait, so people DO say "Eurafrica" when talking about timezones? Where? Are you German as well or is this more widespread?
I am not aware of any historic use and implications of the term "Eurafrica", I thought I made it up wile conjuring this meme during my morning session on the toilet.
Yesterday I had a discussion about a term lumping up the inhabitants of north, central and south america and was made aware that it would be the same as lumping up the inhabitants of Africa and Europe.
I also looked up the time zones again, found that Africa and Europe share more timezones than North and South America, and derived the term "Eurafrica" from "Eurasia".
As for the time zones, this is what I found on Wikipedia:
And while UK left the European Union and gets made fun of for that (which is fair) it, Iceland and Portugal are still part of Europe and their timezone (UTC, formerly known as GMT, Greenwich Mean Time, named after Greenwich in UK) is the same as the westernmost timezone of mainland Africa, so Africa and Europe share four timezones.
On the other hand, mainland North America is split into six timezones, the two easternmost are the only ones that also cover South America.
So while (mainland) North and South America are split into seven timezones of which two are shared, (mainland, even if it's only Portugal for Europe) Africa and Europe are split into four timezones of which all are shared. Ergo it is far more obvious to lump together Africa and Europe than North and South America.
The UK is still part of Europe, just not the EU.
That's what I said.
Ah, see, you missed a spot. There is one extra timezone in Western Africa covering a big chunk of subsaharan countries (Mali, Senegal, Mauritania and so on) that is one timezone to the West of the UK, so it doesn't really overlap with mainland Europe (unless you include Iceland, which is a stretch for "mainland").
And in South America there is also a third westernmost zone that overlaps with North America, so that's three for three. Sure, the US specifically has a lot of weird timezones for stuff like Alaska and Hawaii and half-step timezones and a bunch of other nonsense, but geographically they overlap and they cover every single timezone in SA, so it feels fairly analogous. At that point you may as well count colonial remnants for Europe and you end up with literally every timezone being in France somehow, which you probably don't want.
Timezones are arbitrary and weird and they are not really geography, I guess is my point. But if you just randomly rolled Europe and Africa together on a whim for the sake of a meme that answers that question perfectly fine. I've just been working cross-continentally for decades and I have opinions on the fact that the planet is a sphere. I'm mostly against it, I think it's a design flaw.
Are you blind or trolling? Mali, Senegal, Mauretania etc are in the same fucking timezone as Portugal, UK and Iceland. UTC 0.
No, its 2/3, the easternmost timezone of South America (eastern half of Brazil, Argentina, etc) overlaps nowhere with North America.
But nobody (besides you) is talking geographically. It's about timezones, and they're not always geographical.
It's not random. It's based on timezones.
Not currently, as far as I can tell, no. Mali and Mauritania are currently on GMT +0, but since the UK is on daylight savings they are currently not on GMT, they are on GMT+1. Because believe it or not BST and GMT are not the same, so Portugal and the UK are one hour off from subsaharan Africa. I see how you'd get mixed up by that.
And it's a similar story with SA, but there I think you're just wrong. There is an extra time zone for Colombia, Peru and Ecuador that is NOT the same as Western Brazil, it's one hour off, -5 instead of -4. Brasilia is two hours away from Lima, not one. I don't think any of those countries does daylight savings at all, though, as far as I can tell, so they match differently to different US zones at different times of year, but I'm pretty sure thery always stay 2 zones away from each other.
So yeah, no, you DID miss a spot. No need to get mad, you can just look up the actual current times, I'm not wrong. Turns out a static map isn't enough to tell you if two places that sometimes have the same hour on the clock are on the same timezone.
Timezones are weird and random and dumb.
Dude, for one last time, if you don't understand it now just don't bother answering. IT'S A JOKE ABOUT TIME ZONES, NOT WHAT THE ACTUAL CLOCK SHOWS!
And for South America: two timezones cover both North and South America, the others don't. Got it?
No, no, THREE timezones cover North and South America, not two. There is an extra timezone to the East of Canada that the US doesn't have that currently overlaps with Brazil Eastern. You're missing a spot.
I mean, if you want to argue that Halifax overlapping Sao Paulo is the same as Iceland overlapping Mali maybe we can talk, but saying that only two timezones overlap between the two is not accurate.
And yeah, it's about timezones, because timezones are not internationally determined and shift throughout the year. If you want to think about timezones as the UTC/GMT offset, then they change throughout the year due to countries doing daylight savings inconsistently. But the only way to think about them otherwise is via country codes (so the UK is always on BST as opposed to GMT +0 in winter and +1 in summer) and then it's a mostly arbitrary mess. Countries aren't mandated to stick to an internationally recognized timezone, not every country needs to line up with another country just because they're generally in the same spot.
I'm unreasonably invested in this, because I'm one hour closer to PST for four blissful weeks of the year and depending on what year (and country) you catch me it's the difference between leaving work on a sunny afternoon or in the dead of night.
That spot is Labrador and Newfoundland, not Nova Scotia (where Halifax is located). Labrador and Newfoundland are islands, not mainland, and not even as significant as the British Isles. They're like Hawai'i which I also didn't count.
Exactly. And I need my energy elsewhere. Bye.
You are, again, factually incorrect. Dude, it's fine, you missed a spot, it's not the end of the world.
It is, as of this writing, 06:32 in Halifax.
It is, as of this writing, 06:33 in Sao Paulo. Took me a minute to look it up.
This is easily available information. All I did at the top of this thread is pull a real time timezone map. I didn't know this off the top of my head, obviously, I'm not THAT much of a nerd.
You were ever so slightly wrong on the internet. On a technicality. It happens. It didn't need to be a flame war.