Clearly, Singapore is west of Jakarta, then how come Singapore local time is 1 hour ahead of Jakarta?
It is for business hour reason, Singapore follow Hong Kong and China time one hour ahead since many business come from those countries, I think.
Singapore set its time zone one hour ahead (vs. its real geographical location) in order to compete with Hong Kong as the trading center (esp. the stock exchange activities).
INA Government has prepared to make all Indonesia local time same to Singapore time. Since now Indonesia has 3 different local time
I think that the time of the Singapore is one hour ahead due to Gregorian Date than the Jakarta also the local business for the China.It is under the revoulation of the China government so that it have to follow the time and date of the China respectively which i think.
Fyi S'pore already advanced its time zone one hour ahead many decades ago (as of 1982-01-01) when Hong Kong was still a colony of the British Empire and China was nowhere from today, still known as "the Sickman from Asia", "the Sleeping Giant" and so on... in no way China has any influence on the time zone change Of course the current calendar used is based on the Gregorian one as set by the Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 (from the previous one, the Julian calendar, named after Julius Caesar from the Roman Empire).
I didn't know the answer when I first asked. Then after reading a few posts, I thought I understood. Now as more and more people joining in the discussion, I got confused again
Sorry to drag this thread out but couldn't help mentioning this fact of global relativity. The two days of June 20-21 are the longest days of the year in the Northern hemisphere. In Singapore these two days are 12 hrs 11minutes and 48 seconds long. That is a mere 8 minutes longer than the shortest day of the year in December. (*yawn*) If you live in Edmonton, Canada (as some of our BC'ers do) for the next two days the sun rises ~5am and sets after 10pm for 17 hours 2 minutes and 47 seconds of glorious sunshine. That is 9.5 hours longer a day than they get in frigid dark December! Now you can see why Canadians really really appreciate our very brief summers. (and why we spend way too much time on the internet in winter)
A jurisdiction can call the time pretty much anything they want. There is usually business or other practical reasons behind it. It sounds as though Singapore adjusted slightly because they wanted their time zone to be the same as their most important regional trading partners. Does that make sense?
