Areas along the U.S. Pacific Coast, such as California, Washington and Oregon, operate on Pacific Standard Time. Additionally, northern Idaho, Nevada, Baja California in Mexico and parts of Canada, such as British Columbia, also run on Pacific time.
China maintains a unique time zone. Even though the country covers a vast amount of land, the entire country is under the same time zone, due to government policies. Parallel regions north of China in Russia operate in different time zones.
While the United States and many other countries observe daylight savings time by adjusting clocks twice a year (to add or subtract an hour), China stopped adjusting its time, beginning in 1991.
Greenwich time, also known as Coordinated Universal Time, is the reference point for determining time differences. For instance, the difference between Greenwich Time and Pacific Time is minus eight hours. The difference between Greenwich and China Time is plus eight hours.
Time zones influence days of the week. When it is late evening in the Pacific Coast region on a Tuesday, it is midmorning on Wednesday in China. When it is daylight in the Pacific time region, night will have fallen in the China Time region.
