Spain has the same timezone as Poland, despite most of Spain being west of Greenwhich, which is one hour later already.
It is evident that the choice was made politically, with the message being that easy compatibility with the economies of France, Germany and Italy was more important, than the clock reflecting the course of the sun.
Spain is the very example of the difficulties of timezone politics.
France actually was in the same timezone as the UK before WWII and the German occupation. My grandma remembers switching to “German time”. Franco’s Spain similarly changed timezones in 1942 to match their German allies. So, yes, the change was made politically. :-) I’m guessing France is also responsible for Algeria and Morocco being in UTC+1, not sure if they’ve ever discussed changing zones.
Edit: I just checked and I was wrong about the Moroccan time zone. Algeria is in UTC+1 though (all year long, they don’t use DST), not sure why it’s in yellow on your map.
Spain has the same timezone as Poland, despite most of Spain being west of Greenwhich, which is one hour later already.
It is evident that the choice was made politically, with the message being that easy compatibility with the economies of France, Germany and Italy was more important, than the clock reflecting the course of the sun.
Spain is the very example of the difficulties of timezone politics.
France actually was in the same timezone as the UK before WWII and the German occupation. My grandma remembers switching to “German time”. Franco’s Spain similarly changed timezones in 1942 to match their German allies. So, yes, the change was made politically. :-) I’m guessing France is also responsible for Algeria
and Moroccobeing in UTC+1, not sure if they’ve ever discussed changing zones.Edit: I just checked and I was wrong about the Moroccan time zone. Algeria is in UTC+1 though (all year long, they don’t use DST), not sure why it’s in yellow on your map.