Russia spans eleven time zones, more than any other country.

Russia is by far the largest country in the world by area, stretching across Europe and Asia over a distance so vast that it currently spans eleven standard time zones, from Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea in the west to Chukotka near Alaska in the east. When it’s morning in Moscow, it’s already the middle of the night in the country’s easternmost regions.

No other country comes close to that number; the next largest countries by area, including Canada, the United States, and China, span far fewer time zones either because of their shape or because they’ve deliberately consolidated into fewer official zones for administrative simplicity. Russia has adjusted its time zone system several times in recent history, briefly reducing the count before restoring it closer to the geographic total, reflecting the practical challenge of coordinating time across such an enormous single country.