Interesting Facts About China

Late Sunrise

Because China is approximately 3.7 million square meters in size, it covers five time zones. Despite this fact, the entire mainland China, Macau, Hong Kong, and Taiwan province all share one time zone. This means that while the Eastern regions of China may experience an early morning sunrise, the sunrise in the Westernmost regions of the country can occur as late as 10:00 am!

In order to get the most out of the hours of sunlight, the Westernmost region of Xinyiang has adopted its own time zone that is two hours behind Beijing Standard Time. While shops and restaurants in this area do their best to accommodate this time zone change, the difference in time zones does provide much confusion for those who do business with people in other regions of the country.