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Three Biggest Cities by Time Zone With Map

For each time zone, can you name the three biggest cities by urban population? When you guess the city, it will appear on the map. Good luck!
Only cities above 10,000 are included
Using estimates from citypopulation.de with Wikipedia as a secondary source
Quiz by Jiaozira
Rate:
Last updated: July 27, 2022
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First submittedMay 23, 2020
Times taken20,965
Average score48.9%
Rating4.97
24:00
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UTC
#1
#2
#3
-11
11.5 k
7.94 k
3.95 k
Pago Pago
Tafuna
Nu'uuli
-10
1.00 m
55.9 k
43.3 k
Honolulu
Kahului
Hilo
-9½
2.18 k
1.93 k
1.68 k
Taiohae
Atuona
Hakahau
-9
291 k
32.1 k
31.5 k
Anchorage
Juneau
Fairbanks
-8
17.7 m
7.85 m
4.42 m
Los Angeles
San Francisco
Seattle
-7
4.70 m
3.75 m
2.45 m
Phoenix
Denver
Salt Lake City
-6
23.0 m
9.75 m
7.20 m
Mexico City
Chicago
Dallas
-5
22.1 m
10.1 m
9.60 m
New York City
Lima
Bogota
-4
7.25 m
3.75 m
2.62 m
Santiago
Caracas
Maracaibo
-3½
178 k
19.5 k
12.0 k
St. John's
Corner Brook
Grand Falls-Windsor
-3
22.4 m
16.4 m
13.2 m
São Paulo
Buenos Aires
Rio de Janeiro
-2
6.06 k
-
-
Fernando de Noronha
-
-
-1
130 k
69.9 k
68.8 k
Praia
Mindelo
Ponta Delgada
UTC
#1
#2
#3
+0
14.8 m
5.60 m
5.10 m
+0
London
Abidjan
Accra
+1
19.4 m
12.4 m
11.4 m
Lagos
Kinshasa
Paris
+2
21.0 m
13.9 m
6.30 m
Cairo
Johannesburg
Khartoum
+3
17.3 m
16.0 m
8.05 m
Moscow
Istanbul
Riyadh
+3½
15.3 m
3.20 m
3.20 m
Tehran
Mashhad
Isfahan
+4
5.35 m
2.57 m
1.50 m
Dubai
Baku
Abu Dhabi
+4½
4.32 m
614 k
436 k
Kabul
Kandahar
Herat
+5
17.8 m
13.0 m
3.45 m
Karachi
Lahore
Islamabad
+5½
30.3 m
25.1 m
16.8 m
Delhi
Mumbai
Kolkata
+5¾
2.50 m
403 k
281 k
Kathmandu
Pokhara
Bharatpur
+6
20.1 m
4.92 m
2.10 m
Dhaka
Chittagong
Almaty
+6½
5.60 m
1.56 m
925 k
Yangon
Mandalay
Naypyidaw
+7
31.3 m
18.8 m
8.60 m
Jakarta
Bangkok
Ho Chi Minh City
+8
46.7 m
33.6 m
25.7 m
Guangzhou
Shanghai
Manila
+8¾
53
23
19
Eucla
Mundrabilla
Cocklebiddy
+9
40.4 m
24.8 m
17.7 m
Tokyo
Seoul
Osaka
+9½
1.34 m
149 k
29.6 k
Adelaide
Darwin
Mount Gambier
+10
5.30 m
4.97 m
3.15 m
Sydney
Melbourne
Brisbane
+10½
382
-
-
Lord Howe Island
-
-
+11
199 k
96.0 k
84.5 k
Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk
Magadan
Honiara
+12
1.40 m
374 k
209 k
Auckland
Christchurch
Wellington
+12¾
663
-
-
Chatham Islands
-
-
+13
36.7 k
23.2 k
7.80 k
Apia
Nuku'alofa
Vaitele
+14
3.00 k
1.89 k
1.21 k
Tabwakea
London
Banana
+5
Level 70
May 23, 2020
Some of the grey answers which are filled in are islands rather than towns, however 'Chatham Islands' means a lot more to the vast majority of us than 'Waitangi' or 'Owenga'.
+9
Level 84
May 23, 2020
Awesome quiz! Really fun and beautifully made. Thanks!
+2
Level 70
May 23, 2020
I appreciate it mate. Had loads of fun making this quiz :)
+3
Level 76
May 24, 2020
Fantastic, great map! Not that it changes much but maybe 1st place cities can have bigger dots etc
+2
Level 70
May 24, 2020
I appreciate the suggestion. I've gone and implemented your idea into the map and I'm liking the way it's turned out!
+2
Level 56
Jun 9, 2020
I love the quiz. Very well made, and the map looks beautiful. A suggestion, maybe make the blocks even. Other than that, great quiz!
+2
Level 70
Jun 12, 2020
I see. The first column is for negative UTC hours, while the second is for positive hours. It used to be even before I changed it.
+1
Level 56
Jun 17, 2020
Oh, i didnt realise.
+4
Level 56
Aug 15, 2020
This quiz is so underrated
+6
Level 70
Aug 16, 2020
I'm glad you think so! It doesn't matter to me, how many people play these quizzes. If the people who play the quizzes are enjoying them, that is more important!! :)
+5
Level 56
Aug 21, 2020
I really dont understand how it only has 45 takes. It is by far one of the best quizzes on the site and it should have been featured a long time ago.
+5
Level 70
Aug 21, 2020
Thank you! It wasn't the hardest map to make, as I simply redid a US government map which is in the public domain. Despite this, I'm pretty happy with the results.
+3
Level 55
Oct 3, 2020
WOW! I was planning on making a 5-by-time zone version using a similar map. May I still make it?
+3
Level 70
Oct 3, 2020
Yes, for sure! The map is based off of the most common free-use map avaliable (I see it everywhere). I look foward to playing your quiz :)
+9
Level 74
Mar 7, 2021
Nominated!!! One of the best quizzes ever!!!

I hereby decorate you Supreme Cartographer of the Realm of JetPunk!

+4
Level 70
Mar 7, 2021
Thank you very much,and that sounds like quite the prestigious award indeed :D
+2
Level 76
Jul 27, 2022
Awesome, I agree! The one gnarly one for me was looking for Bangladesh's 3rd city, not realising Almaty way to the north-west was in the same time zone.
+3
Level 65
Oct 25, 2021
Great quiz! Would you consider possibly putting the times above the timezones so I know the timezone I'm missing cities in?
+4
Level 70
Oct 26, 2021
Thank you! It will be difficult to add time-zones directly onto the map (since there are time-zones such as those in Nepal, India, Newfoundland etc. which cover only a small area). I may look into colour coding the answer columns, however :)
+4
Level 71
Oct 31, 2021
Awesome quiz! I love everything about the map: the shadings, the borders, etc.

It really highlights the absurdity of time zones though. Like, I guess you could make the justification for large countries having their own time zone, but why do Afghanistan and Nepal need them? Why is Dhaka in the same time zone as Almaty, despite being significantly further to the east? Why does Central Australia have its own time zone even though it aligns perfectly with Tokyo's time zone? I don't expect you to know the answer to these questions, I just find it crazy that each country kinda does its own thing with time zones. It would make more sense in my opinion to have it standardized globally.

+7
Level 70
Nov 1, 2021
Thank you!

Honestly, it is one big mess and geopolitics/economics are often more important than actual sun time when timezones are chosen! A good example of this is Spain, who changed from Greenwich Mean Time (+0) to +1 in WWII as Francisco Franco wanted to be aligned with Germany's timezone. This means that in Galicia, Spain there is over a two hour difference between sun time and clock time.

Another problem is Daylight Savings Time. Yukon used to be green on the map like British Columbia, but when they scrapped DST they became in line with Alberta for half the year, even when Whitehorse is by far the westernmost city in Canada.

In Xinjiang, they officially follow the same timezone as Beijing (as does all of China). Since this is far off from sun time, there is an unofficial timezone called 'Xinjiang time' which is used by the ethnic Uyghur population, while Han Chinese people in Xinjiang still use Beijing time.

In short, it is madness!

+4
Level 79
Jul 3, 2022
South Australia originally used +9 time zone (same as Tokyo) but in May 1899, South Australia advanced Central Standard Time by thirty minutes "after lobbying by businesses who wanted to be closer to Melbourne time and cricketers and footballers who wanted more daylight to practice in the evenings".

Glad to be one of the 6% who got Mount Gambier on this quiz!

+2
Level 76
Jul 27, 2022
Apparently Nepal nudged its time zone very slightly different to India's just to be different from them.
+9
Level 83
Jun 29, 2022
knowing the three biggest cities in Myanmar has finally paid off
+3
Level 79
Jun 29, 2022
Awesome quiz. Only suggestion, if it is possible, it would be helpful if the timezone was highlighted on the map as you scrolled over it. Or if it told what time zone your cursor was over. Just because the colors are so close it's difficult on the map to distinguish the zones.
+2
Level 70
Jul 27, 2022
Thank you! I like the idea quite a lot, although unfortunately I don't have the technical skills to make it work :(
+3
Level 78
Jun 30, 2022
Great quiz, a bit mean with the scores but I can always have another go
+5
Level 80
Jun 30, 2022
Maybe it’s just me but I gave up on the third Pakistani city after I tried every large one I know, except Islamabad. Could we please accept Rawalpindi as that is the core city in the metro area according to most Jetpunk quizzes.
+2
Level 70
Jul 27, 2022
Rawalpindi will work from now.
+3
Level 82
Jun 30, 2022
Great quiz! After I did an initial sweep through to get the obvious ones, it was challenging to work out which bits were actually the same time zone. I was reminded of all the questions on Quora premised on the belief you can convert between time zone and longitude. As this jumble shows, you definitely cannot. I managed to get every million plus city and almost all 100k plus ones.
+1
Level 70
Jul 27, 2022
Thanks for playing!
+2
Level 65
Jul 7, 2022
Amazing quiz!
+1
Level 70
Jul 27, 2022
Thank you!
+3
Level 65
Jul 27, 2022
I need to go to Cocklebiddy.
+1
Level 70
Jul 27, 2022
As someone who is colorblind... god was this hard. Haha
+2
Level 82
Jul 27, 2022
several of the time zones are very hard to distinguish even if you're not color blind.
+1
Level 22
Jul 27, 2022
San Diego and San Jose both have a higher population than San Francisco...
+4
Level 70
Jul 27, 2022
The populations are measured by urban area, meaning San Jose and the Bay Area are grouped with San Francisco.
+2
Level 72
Jul 27, 2022
Please accept Rawalpindi for Islamabad. The city is older and larger.
+3
Level 73
Jul 27, 2022
Really fun quiz, congrats. Just a couple things: maybe change Nepal's colour as if you don't notice the border, it looks like its in India's time zone. Also, please accept Rawalpindi for Islamabad as it is the bigger city in the urban area.
+1
Level 70
Jul 27, 2022
Thank you for playing, Rawalpindi will work now! I'll see what I can do about the colours, I had a hard time choosing suitable colours that were somewhere between the main four pastel colours I chose :)
+1
Level 66
Jul 27, 2022
The colors of disjointed zones (same hour) do not seem to match!
+2
Level 69
Jul 27, 2022
Banana.
+1
Level 55
Jul 29, 2022
Houston is a bigger city than Dallas.
+2
Level 70
Jul 29, 2022
It is because of the way the populations are measured, that Dallas appears before Houston
+1
Level 62
Aug 1, 2022
since when is Salt Lake City 2.5 million people? I've got 200k for city proper and barely over 1 million for metro.
+1
Level 70
Aug 3, 2022
The source is on the top in the caveats (look under 'urban agglomerations').

To be honest, I find the figures to be a little inflated but the source is pretty uniform across Jetpunk.

+3
Level 29
Aug 5, 2022
I got Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk but not NYC, Rio and Sao Paulo. I hate myself.
+1
Level 50
Aug 13, 2022
How, it’s either you did it on purpose or idk
+4
Level 58
Aug 12, 2022
I think this is the first quiz I've seen where Corner Brook and Grand Falls-Windsor are up their right alongside cities like Tokyo and London. Well done!
+2
Level 70
Aug 12, 2022
Thank you! Here's hoping this quiz goes viral and people start giving Newfoundland the attention it deserves :D
+3
Level 59
Dec 4, 2022
For once, living in South Australia actually helps with a quiz!
+1
Level 61
Feb 9, 2023
+8 3/4 moment
+2
Level 55
Sep 16, 2023
+8 3/4 is one of my favourite map oddities.
+2
Level 53
May 17, 2023
Great quiz, but it could be visually "more friendly". The table of answers could have lines with different colors or thicker borders to better visually organize and separate each UTC. Plus: the time zones on the map are REALLY visually confusing! It would be awesome if the whole time zone column on the map changed color once you guess its three answers!
+1
Level 70
Sep 16, 2023
I agree that it can be more visually friendly, especially in Asia where the borders become very strange. One possible solution I have is to make the cities the same colours as their respective time zone once they are correctly guessed. Unfortunately, as of the time I'm writing this comment there is no way that I know of (except potentially with some coding skills but I haven't seen anyone pull it off yet) in order to change or fill in the map only after guessing a group of answers, although it would be an excellent feature!
+1
Level 49
Jun 24, 2023
Shenzhen should be an acceptable answer for Guangzhou.
+2
Level 55
Sep 16, 2023
Nice to see some representation for border time (ACWST) , its often left out. Technically it's not even recognised by the governments of either of the states, it's a pretty cool experience driving through that section of the Nullarbor.
+1
Level 70
Sep 16, 2023
That's really neat! I didn't realise either state didn't recognise it. It seems that some of the road towns on either side decided to do their own thing for the sake of making business easier.
+2
Level 71
Sep 21, 2023
I would suggest making Nepal a different color than India. I spent so much time looking for that time zone, and still could not find it.
+1
Level 87
Nov 19, 2023
This quiz rocks