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Description

Zveiner and I made this map for Atlas Altera with three time zone systems, each with their own prime meridionals (OTL meridian, following parallels). The point of our project is to tell facts through storytelling, because how reality is portrayed often hides the truth. Following the bat-and-ball themed map, this is another niche topic, one that puts into focus how we've lost different historic senses of time, though we may think it's for the better (less headaches, less math)...
These three time zone systems are all coordinated and, more importantly, consist of compromises between even more culturally distinct calendric and timekeeping systems that continue to be used by states in official capacity. One time zone accommodates cultures that count 24, 12, or 6 hour-equivalent units in a day, another accommodates for decimal and vestigial bases, and the last one accommodates for the old Emporic (OTL greater Indic) cultural systems of dividing the day into 30 and 60 hour-equivalent units while having the prime meridional set on the ancient city of Ujjain, where the Tropic of Cancer crosses over.
Pragmatic Decimal Time (PDT): You might recognize that deciday refers to the French revolutionary proposal to divide the day into 10 hour-units to align with the rest of the metric system. This decimal system happens to also be able to accommodate vigesimal cultures, such as the Nicaraguans and Peruvians. These two cultures have their timekeeping systems standardized over the Aztec-Mayan and Muisca-Inca numeral systems, then when fed through Spanish hegemony, adopted an hour-equivalent system that divides the day into 20 units. Prior to contact, these cultures had little use for small timekeeping units, which is why they use the word ura from Spanish hora.
Greater Emporic Time (GET): in southern Serica (most of OTL Southeast Asia), their day is divided into 60 units, known as nayis, while in much of the rest of the Emporic Rim (akin to a larger Indic sphere than our OTL), a day consists of 30 units, known as muhurtas. Being divisible and coming from the same Indic cultural traditions, the states that use them came together to form a larger standardized time zone system with a chosen prime meridional.
World Coordinated Time (WTC): this is akin to OTL's UTC, with the Sinosphere and Polynesean cultures agreeing to tie their times to Greenwich, due to international precedent, and the fact that their systems can easily run parallel to the 24-hour-day countries.
TL;DR:
Essentially, all the calendric and timekeeping systems can be boiled down into one of these three time zone systems, based on the divisibility of the hour-equivalent units and the prime meridionals they chose to align with.

About the project:
Atlas Altera is a syntopian fiction project that leverages the classroom cliché map to reimagine how diversity and co-existence can take shape, all the while building from real but buried geographies. For general context, go to www.atlasaltera.com

Support this kind of content:
To access in-depth lore and footnotes (such as the footnotes that goes with this map), or to download a high resolution print-quality version join the Patreon! Your funds will go to supporting me as well as other collaborators of the project. There's also a special offer of receiving two free vinyl stickers in the mail right now for anyone who pledges this month.
Otherwise, please join the community around this project on r/AtlasAltera or Discord (link in the subreddit). I'm also doing backstage-style discussions for this project with my friend, which you can watch on YouTube. I'm hoping to start a new style of shorter videos too, so do subscribe to the channel to stay tuned.

Description

Zveiner and I made this map for Atlas Altera with three time zone systems, each with their own prime meridionals (OTL meridian, following parallels). The point of our project is to tell facts through storytelling, because how reality is portrayed often hides the truth. Following the bat-and-ball themed map, this is another niche topic, one that puts into focus how we've lost different historic senses of time, though we may think it's for the better (less headaches, less math)...
These three time zone systems are all coordinated and, more importantly, consist of compromises between even more culturally distinct calendric and timekeeping systems that continue to be used by states in official capacity. One time zone accommodates cultures that count 24, 12, or 6 hour-equivalent units in a day, another accommodates for decimal and vestigial bases, and the last one accommodates for the old Emporic (OTL greater Indic) cultural systems of dividing the day into 30 and 60 hour-equivalent units while having the prime meridional set on the ancient city of Ujjain, where the Tropic of Cancer crosses over.
Pragmatic Decimal Time (PDT): You might recognize that deciday refers to the French revolutionary proposal to divide the day into 10 hour-units to align with the rest of the metric system. This decimal system happens to also be able to accommodate vigesimal cultures, such as the Nicaraguans and Peruvians. These two cultures have their timekeeping systems standardized over the Aztec-Mayan and Muisca-Inca numeral systems, then when fed through Spanish hegemony, adopted an hour-equivalent system that divides the day into 20 units. Prior to contact, these cultures had little use for small timekeeping units, which is why they use the word ura from Spanish hora.
Greater Emporic Time (GET): in southern Serica (most of OTL Southeast Asia), their day is divided into 60 units, known as nayis, while in much of the rest of the Emporic Rim (akin to a larger Indic sphere than our OTL), a day consists of 30 units, known as muhurtas. Being divisible and coming from the same Indic cultural traditions, the states that use them came together to form a larger standardized time zone system with a chosen prime meridional.
World Coordinated Time (WTC): this is akin to OTL's UTC, with the Sinosphere and Polynesean cultures agreeing to tie their times to Greenwich, due to international precedent, and the fact that their systems can easily run parallel to the 24-hour-day countries.
TL;DR:
Essentially, all the calendric and timekeeping systems can be boiled down into one of these three time zone systems, based on the divisibility of the hour-equivalent units and the prime meridionals they chose to align with.

About the project:
Atlas Altera is a syntopian fiction project that leverages the classroom cliché map to reimagine how diversity and co-existence can take shape, all the while building from real but buried geographies. For general context, go to www.atlasaltera.com

Support this kind of content:
To access in-depth lore and footnotes (such as the footnotes that goes with this map), or to download a high resolution print-quality version join the Patreon! Your funds will go to supporting me as well as other collaborators of the project. There's also a special offer of receiving two free vinyl stickers in the mail right now for anyone who pledges this month.
Otherwise, please join the community around this project on r/AtlasAltera or Discord (link in the subreddit). I'm also doing backstage-style discussions for this project with my friend, which you can watch on YouTube. I'm hoping to start a new style of shorter videos too, so do subscribe to the channel to stay tuned.