Eastern Standard Time

History, languages and cultures of the time zone, Eastern Standard Time (EST). Discussion now in progress. Is it possible for the people of a time zone to have a history? The Internet could make that happen. In this study, I am investigating the possibilities of uniting the people of a time zone into one community, a community that could one day have it's own specific history.

75ºW is denoted as GMT-5 on the map. The area is also known as Eastern Standard Time (EST) in Canada and the U.S because it is on the eastern seaboard (or atlantic coast). We can reasonably expect the zone not to be known as EST in South America since it runs along the west coast of the continent.

Every 30 degrees on the map is two hours. I want to highlight two hours of time and look at certain relationships in that area, Nunavut to Quebec, the Industrial Belt of New York to the Great Lakes, Washington DC to Havana, Colombia and Peru.



What do we know about this area? Let's take a closer inspection. It begins at the North Pole and runs down the Eastern Seaboard of North America through the Caribbean and along the Western Seaboard of South America down to Peru. There are 3 main European languages (Spanish, English and French) and 2 main Indigenous languages (Inuit and Quechua).

In this section of the map, everyone is on the same hour. They share the same natural time. For the vast majority of people the sun rises and sets at the same time. So we are eating our breakfast, lunch and dinner together. I want to build an international web community upon the framework of this time zone. The time zone is a communication form that can transcend the language barriers. The membership must be, at least, bilingual, and preferably, multilingual. Each member can serve as a language bridge to the other.



Here is a large (2.3MB) detailed world map with cities, longitudes and latitudes. This is a great map. Once you download it, click in the right lower corner to enlarge it. It's really big so you can see all the countries. This is one of my favorite maps.



Let me take you on a tour of my time zone. North American Eastern Time Zone Also see: In the Neighborhood



The northernmost town, in my time zone, that I have been able to find is called Pond Inlet, located on the northernmost tip of Baffin Island. The local language is Inuktitut, but the only text on their website is in english. When looking at the arctic extremes of a longitude, we are cutting through what appears to be a huge indigenous Arctic culture. There may be 1 million people living within the Arctic Circle and I think that they have a commonly rooted language, whether they are located above Canada or above Europe and Asia. That language and culture is known as Inuit. Looking at the Pond Inlet site, you will see the characters used in the Inuit language. Currently there is little or no support for Inuit on the web. You might view the language in photographs such as this one:









This is the province of Nunavut. The northernmost tip is a government polar observation station called Alert (population 8). We would expect the 8 people living there, being government employed scientists, to be of Northern European descent. I do not know if Alert is on EST.



Nunavut was recently separated from the provinces of Quebec and Ontario (I think). The population is largely Inuit (Inuktitut). The website Nunavut 99 - Our Language, Our Selves revelas an Inuktitut culture is struggling to make it's presence on the Internet.

What's the population living in Eastern Standard Time? North American Time Zones lists all countries, states and major cities. A google search for "what is the population of eastern standard time" turns up ZERO (nothing). So we can only guess. It would seem safe to say that there must be at least 100 million people in this zone.


Eastern Standard Time (EST) USA Population

Connecticut 3,510,297

Delaware 843,524

Florida 16,849,199

Georgia 9,072,576

Indiana 4,972,570

Kentucky 3,184,089

Maine 1,321,505

Maryland 5,600,388

Massachusetts 6,398,743

Michigan 10,038,725

New Hampshire 1,309,940

New Jersey 8,717,925

New York 19,254,630

North Carolina 8,683,242

Ohio 11,464,042

Pennsylvania 12,429,616

Rhode Island 1,076,189

South Carolina 4,255,083

Tennessee 2,091,303

Vermont 623,050

Virginia 7,567,465

Washington, DC 550,521

West Virginia 1,816,856


TOTAL - 141,631,478

But that does not include all of the people in EST, only the USA. So the guess should be revised up. Because EST includes many of Canada's largest cities, the Caribbean, and the western seaboard of South America, there must be close to 250,000,000 habitants. This means that there are 250,000,000 people who, daily, share the same natural time.

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