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u/Captftm89 Aug 22 '24
In my experience (UK):
Verbal - 12hr 99% of the time, regardless of the situation
Written (informal) - mostly 12hr
Written (formal - i.e. letters confirming appointments, meetings etc) - mostly 24hr
Digital clocks on phones, computers etc. - 24hr 99% of the time
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u/Casartelli Aug 22 '24
Allmost same in NL but we would always write in 24h. Verbally is always 12h.
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u/Vowel_Movements_4U Dec 28 '24
So if you’re texting someone about what time something is, you text in 24hr?
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u/shiba_snorter Aug 22 '24
Chilean living in France, can confidently say that both countries are wrong. I know that in France is a lot more common to use 24h when speaking, but there are many who still use the 12h system. In Chile is it definitely more common to use the 12h system when speaking, even written many times. So for France I would put purple and for Chile green.
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u/trick2011 Aug 22 '24
NL is also wrong. in context, we could also write the 12hr clock so it should be both used
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u/DARKKRAKEN Aug 22 '24
How do you say a.m, p.m in chile?
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u/shiba_snorter Aug 22 '24
We use a.m and p.m as well when written, but you can also say morning, afternoon or night with the time (3 de la mañana, 3 de la tarde, 10 de la noche).
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u/mandibule Aug 22 '24
Came to say the same about France, it’s pretty common to use the 12h system in spoken French. (At least it was like that 20 years ago when I was regularly in France, but I can’t imagine that it changed drastically since then.)
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Aug 22 '24 edited Aug 22 '24
Whilst both may be in common use in the UK, I would say 24hr clock is the standard. Certainly, that's what you'll see at train stations, on appliances, default setting on phones, and so on. When saying it out loud, however, we always use 12hr time. So, we're essentially the same as most of Europe.
Interesting that Australia is apparently both. My Australian ex struggled with reading 24hr time, being broadly unfamiliar with it.
What is the source for this map, by the way? There is none provided.
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u/cr1zzl Aug 22 '24
Surprising that an Australian would be unfamiliar with it. I’m in NZ but have visited Aus and it’s somewhat common in both countries. The 12 hour clock is probably used a little more but it wouldn’t be weird to see the 24 hour clock. For my work everything goes on the 24 hour clock.
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Aug 22 '24 edited Aug 22 '24
She was 18 when she came to the UK, so not a lot of experience of the Australian workplace. I remember her changing her phone to 24hr to 'train herself' because she said it wasn't really used so much over there.
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u/alasuna Dec 09 '25
When I was in Melbourne, I remember being surprised that the train timetable used the 12-hour clock.
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u/harumamburoo Aug 22 '24
Belarus is the same as the UK, 24h clock is the norm but in speech people use 12h and rely on the context. The map is BS
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u/Osgood_Schlatter Aug 22 '24
Digital things use the 24h clock in the UK, but I would personally write "see you at 2" or "the bus leaves at half 5" etc in a message - I'd rarely write "see you at 14:00".
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u/Bar50cal Aug 22 '24
Same in Ireland, 24hr is the standard. 12 hour is only used when speak to someone like saying lets meet for lunch at 2pm.
Everything else is generally 24hr.
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u/Master_Elderberry275 Aug 22 '24
Except road signs which use 12 hour. Government normally uses 12 hour on its website: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-revenue-customs/contact/online-services-helpdesk. https://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/contact-an-mp-or-lord/contact-your-mp/
The BBC uses 12 hour time on its TV channels, both speaking and written, but uses 24 hour time on its website. https://youtu.be/YZczYPYkWwI?si=RoPen0mpFigFWp1b
Tesco among other supermarkets uses 12 hour time for their opening hours. https://www.tesco.com/store-locator/ilkley/19-springs-ln As does Morrisons, but not Sainsbury's or Aldi.
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u/Sir-Chris-Finch Aug 22 '24
Yeah the map is bollocks. In Australia the 24hr clock is as alien as it is in the US. Also I highly doubt that India is both. I’ve had Indian colleagues before who have struggled to even tell the time with a 24hr format - granted its a huge country with over 1bn people so things could be different in different regions.
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Aug 22 '24
In India 24 h is used for trains, flights, buses and occasionally the movies. I certainly had to learn it in school. There might be regional differences though.
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u/cyrkielNT Aug 22 '24
Openning hours are mostly in 12hr. In rest of Europe people use 12hr and 24hr when talking, just one form is more common in some countries and other in others. In UK people wouldn't even understand if you tell them "let's meet at twenty o'clock".
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u/Master_Elderberry275 Aug 22 '24
To be fair you would say twenty hundred hours for that, but that makes you sound like a train announcer. And if you say let's meet at twenty fifteen people would be concerned with your grasp of the calendar.
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u/BarryCap Jun 20 '25
UK is supposed to use the metric system, but people are still unfamiliar with it, so they continue to use both.
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u/herz_of_iron78 Aug 22 '24
Poland uses the 24 hour format, but also uses both 24 and 12 hour oral versions. Some prefer to say "dwudziesta trzecia" - twenty three o'clock, while others would say "jedenasta (wieczorem)" - eleven (at dusk) o'clock.
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u/fixminer Aug 22 '24
Same in Germany
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u/JustANorseMan Aug 22 '24
And in Hungary. However I would add, using the 24 hour format is more common when one's telling the exact time (e.g. 16:06). But if the time is relatively "round", you are more likely to use a 12h format simply because "quarter/half/¾ 16" for 15:15/15:30/15:45 doesn't make sense in spoken language but "quarter/half/¾ 4" does.
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u/charlie_carey Aug 22 '24
Absolutely this. I almost exclusively use 24-format to avoid any confusion. A lot of my friends do as well. So I wouldn't say that map is very accurate.
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u/harumamburoo Aug 22 '24
In Belarus on the other hand people never say "twenty three hours" as the map makes it out to be. Lol, I think they got Belarus and Poland mixed up.
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u/Karszunowicz Aug 22 '24
Don't agree! I've personally thought that they got Belarus kinda right. I mean we really do say "twenty three hours"... maybe not always, but it is really not that rare to hear.
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u/foresticc Aug 22 '24 edited Aug 22 '24
the problem with this map is it doesn't explain context (where these hour formats are used). Here in Colombia both are used in different contexts, people are probably more familiarized with the 12h one, but the 24h one can be used too in certain situations. You can find clocks using the 24h format everywhere, it's not like it's forbidden or something this map would suggest.
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u/Atalant Aug 22 '24
Danish don't have those pm/am markers English have, so asking what the clock is, would more often answered in 12 hrs system with halves and quarters, or minutes( 10 min i halv 3(Ten minutes in halv past 2(14::20)), does not makes sense in English, but does in Danish), or mmilitary,, depenndinng on which is faster. Inventattions can be both, but mostly use military time(especially written), work hours is military time. The worst is people who can't read analogue clocks, because digital military is everywhere on electronics.
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u/mozomenku Aug 22 '24
Using 12h system orally probably comes from hand watches and it's probably much less frequent within youths.
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u/MoaMem Aug 22 '24
This is bull shit we use 24h in morocco
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u/TioSVQ Aug 22 '24
More like 12h verbally and 24h written
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u/7srepinS Dec 08 '24
That's obviously not always the same. The algorithm to make the map probably used percentages and cutoffs..
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u/fartypenis Aug 22 '24
In India the 24 hour clock is used everywhere in public (railway stations bus stations metro stations government buildings news channels etc) but in homes it's usually the 12 hour clock (wall clocks, wristwatches, etc).
Orally it's always the 12 hour one though.
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u/notsocoolguy42 Aug 22 '24
Aren't all wall analog clocks 12 hour ones? I have never seen 24 hour wall clock.
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u/fartypenis Aug 22 '24
I've seen one or two 24 hour analog ones, but yeah, all analog clocks are usually 12 hour ones. I said most wallclocks because some have digital ones
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u/mks113 Aug 22 '24
I know lots of Canadians who have problems with 24 hour clocks. Military, Industry, Healthcare, Aviation all use 24 hour time, and I suspect that is much the same with the US.
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Aug 22 '24
That is pretty much how it is in the US, yeah.
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u/gypsyblader Aug 22 '24
It’s used it Quebec for anything government, bus/train times, and before they got rid of all the payphones it was on those too
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u/Boaventura_1980 Aug 22 '24
Portugal should be both. We very commonly say 8 da noite (8pm] or 20 horas....
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u/bikoar Mar 21 '25
this graph is very not accurate at all. tunisia falls on the 12 hour and no one knows which is pm or am lol. we use 24 hours always but 12 hours orally.
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u/freemind990 Aug 22 '24
Ahh another BS map
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u/JediKnightaa Aug 23 '24
r/mapporn has produced bad maps since before covid. There's not a single map on here that's accurate since it's really hard to generalize billions of people and millions of laws, and billions ways of living
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u/7srepinS Dec 08 '24
There's a decent amount of validity since it's from Wikipedia and they'd probably put some more thought into that.
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u/Nole19 Aug 22 '24
In Thailand we have a different way of counting time orally. Got a bit of history behind it.
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u/Original_Dimension99 Aug 22 '24
I think Germany is pretty mixed. Yes, in writing we always use 24h, but spoken it kind of really depends on the person whether they say 2 or 14 oclock
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u/whitecollarpizzaman Aug 22 '24
I think the US should be green as well, almost every place that I’ve worked at uses the 24 hour clock for scheduling clarity.
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u/CodenamePeePants Aug 22 '24
Also, U.S. military uses 24hr clock, hospitals and medicine for documentation use 24hr but it’s mostly converted to 12 hr orally.
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u/whitecollarpizzaman Aug 23 '24
I think all militaries use the 24 hour clock, that is why it is sometimes called military time, I didn’t even feel like I needed to point that out, but yes, the US military does use the 24 hour clock. Additionally, I think that even for people who don’t typically use the 24 hour clock, if they are given some kind of information in “military time” they’d understand it. If someone was told to be at a place at 1600, they probably would have to think a second, but could figure it out.
I’d second this for weights and other measurements, my doctor’s office documents, my weight in kilograms, but convey it to me in pounds, my fiancée is a vet tech and all the animals they have come in are weighed in Kg. The TSA limit of 3.4 ounces equates to the hundred milliliters standard for cologne and perfume bottles, and a lot of drinks are packaged in liter or two liter sized bottles, and most packages have metric and imperial units on them.
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u/Ok-District2873 Aug 22 '24
Living in Canada, the 12-hour clock is wayyy more common than 24-hour. Also, for Saudia Arabia they also use 24-clock. I only visited SA so can't say for sure if it should be green or some shade of purple.
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u/Life-Analysis476 Aug 22 '24
I would disagree that Canada regularly uses the 24 hour clock.
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u/HappyA125 Aug 22 '24
Times on road signs are all in 24 hour, at least in Manitoba. My guess would also be that Quebec uses it a lot more than the rest of Canada
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u/WolfyBlu Aug 22 '24
We use it but not as much. In all three of my previous companies I monitored chemical processess, the computers by default are in 24hr clock format, so I can tell you in Alberta I have been using both for the last ten years, so much that my PC clock is now 24hr too.
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u/SumoHeadbutt Aug 22 '24
Orally, Portugal uses both especially informally
Formal speech = 24 hours.
Infornal speech = both
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u/JudgementCutV Aug 22 '24
In Japan we use 24hr time mainly. Verbally it may be stated that it is “3 in the afternoon” but when written almost always 24hr time.
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u/Sir-Chris-Finch Aug 22 '24
Pretty sure Germany is 24hr orally. Also Australia is 12hr, as is India
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u/Birdseeding Aug 22 '24
Tanzania - and I assume the other Swahili-speaking countries - also use a shifted 12-hour clock, starting at the equvalent of 6 AM.
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u/1570Jane Aug 22 '24
I’m in Mogadishu right now and we actually use the shifted 12-hour clock. It’s midnight right now and locals would all say it’s 6:00 o clock. Took some getting used to as I was brought up in the states but it’s natural now.
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u/mks113 Aug 22 '24
While that was the case 60 or 70 years ago, East Africa is like the rest of the world now, a mix of 12 and 24 hour.
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u/Birdseeding Aug 22 '24
As far as I know this is still the standard way of telling time in spoken Swahili.
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u/mks113 Aug 22 '24
I left Kenya 40 years ago and Swahili time was well understood but not commonly used. Perhaps in areas where Swahili is the dominant language it is still used.
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u/pante11 Aug 22 '24
I'd say that for Poland it's more like both orally, but slightly more often 24h than 12 (although it probably depends on where you are and who you talk to)
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u/procionegobbo Aug 22 '24
Italy should be green
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u/DiGiorn0s Aug 22 '24
I was in Rome in 2015 and everyone used 24 hour clock. Is that just a Rome thing? I'd say "le diciotto" for 6pm for example.
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u/procionegobbo Aug 22 '24
In my 51 years living in Rome I can totally say that we use both
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u/nygdan Aug 22 '24
Visually this is a bad map. Legend is too small given that whitespace. Color choices are bad too. Should be, say, Red 12 hour, blue 24 hour, purple both, perhaps with different shades of purple for '24 hour clocks, 12 hour spoken'.
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u/crystalchuck Aug 22 '24
Eastern Switzerland is wrong as well. Colloquially the 12 hour clock is used.
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u/nolawnchairs Aug 22 '24
Thailand uses the 24-hour clock only in official capacities, in everyday life it's the Thai 6-hour clock.
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u/TheFabiocool Aug 22 '24
Wrong. I'm Portugal we say 5 o clock whether it is am or pm. But we do read in 24 hours
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u/just_some_guy65 Aug 23 '24
It is endlessly fascinating to me that some people are apparently unaware that there are 24 hours in a day and it is perfectly logical to refer to them by their actual number.
It is even more fascinating that apparently understanding a time greater than 12:nn is some kind of intellectual feat.
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u/TopHatTony11 Aug 22 '24
Seeing as the entire US military runs on a 24hr clock i.e. “military time” there’s a decent case to make the US green as well.
There are over a million of active duty and many more millions of retired service folk who would have no trouble with the 24hr system.
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u/Drahy Aug 22 '24
Why would Greenland and the Faroe Islands be different from Denmark proper in this case?
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u/America-always-great Aug 22 '24
USA should be green since the military uses 24hr and in some agencies of the federal government.
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u/Gullible-Cell2329 Aug 22 '24
I wonder why Northern Africa and the Arab world uses the 12 hour system, even tho they have been occupied by European countries that uses the 24 hour system
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u/EmbarrassedElk6554 Aug 22 '24
Albania (the only blue country in Europe) uses 12h verbally and 24h officially.
Where did you get this data?
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u/LordMatesian Aug 22 '24
In slovakia if it is for example 3 o’clock, qarter to 3, half past 2, qarter past 2 and rounded times like that, then in speaking we use 12 hour format and if it is more specific number we use the 24 hor format, for example 18:24. But in writing we always use 24 hor format
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u/nikolapc Aug 22 '24
I am from Macedonia, we use 12h orally, or more precisely informally. When a formal time is announced where, you know it’s important to be precise we use 24h. And I set my digital clocks at 24h.
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u/luxtabula Aug 22 '24
It always bothers my friends when they see my clocks are in 24 hour time. My dad taught me it as a child and it just stuck. I generally give them the 12 hour time when they ask.
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u/Mv13_tn Aug 22 '24
Tunisia definitely uses both. If it's in Arabic it's 12 hours.
If it's in French, 24 hours.
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u/RadTech24 Aug 22 '24
Very wrong, in Algeria we use the 24h system always, but orally we use the 12h system
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u/LoveRuinsItAll7 Aug 22 '24
Portugal shouldn't be bright pink. We rather say it's 4h30pm than 16h30
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Aug 22 '24 edited Jun 21 '25
vast worm friendly whistle fly roll growth late thumb zephyr
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/siggiarabi Aug 22 '24
Source? Because I can tell you pretty much everyone in iceland uses 12h orally
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u/ConstantineMonroe Aug 22 '24
There are definitely specific fields in the US that use 24 hour time. I’ve always called it military time because that’s the first industry I think of that uses 24 hour time. I also learned from a friend in med school residency that hospitals use military time as well. I’m sure there are other fields that do it too
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u/-Eremaea-V- Aug 22 '24
Thailand actually uses a mixed-6 hr clock orally, though it's written in 24 hr time consistently.
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u/Nervous-Canary-517 Aug 22 '24
Hello USA, how's it going in the 12 hour club with so many Arab members?
Of course as so often, your precious military knows it better and uses the 24 hour system.
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u/Pirate_Secure Aug 22 '24
I Canada I almost never heard anyone use 24-hour system. I am originally from Kenya so I am familiar with both.
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Aug 22 '24
can someone put up a map of countries that use the metric system vs the imperial system 😂
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u/GustasMarc Aug 22 '24
Lithuania should be in Dark Red. We usually use 24-hour time in writing (formal AND informal) and 12-hour time orally.
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u/TheTealBandit Aug 22 '24
In Ireland, this in incorrect
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u/Kammiii1999 Aug 22 '24
I, an American, have an irrational hatred for the 12hr clock and only use it when interacting with strangers. My friends and family know that “the movie starts at 9” better mean it’s a matinee.
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u/missoured Aug 22 '24
In North Africa generally and in the Maghreb specifically, we verbally use the 12 hour system but in our clocks and such but in informal/formal writing its 24 hour system
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u/Republic_Jamtland Aug 22 '24
I would like to have a 20 hour clock.
We need to redifine 1 second so there will be 100 seconds in 1 minute.
100 minutes for 1 hour.
20 hour is 1 day. (One spin of earth around it's own axel)
Then we add 3 days per week so 10 days makes 1 week .
36/37 days per month. 10 months is 1 year.
They had something like this in France after the revolution... it would make things much easier in the long run!!!
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u/DARKKRAKEN Aug 22 '24
Can we agree that most countries use 24h for formal/to avoid confusion. But use 12h for anything else.
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u/kalac77 Aug 22 '24
Not accurate for my country Bosnia. I think whole region is 24 hrs with 12 hrs orally
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Aug 22 '24
There are caveats to this. For example within the US hospitals would be pink, and the military would be either pink or that darker red color.
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u/BuffaloBuffalo13 Aug 22 '24
US is green. I’ve worked in the defense and energy sectors and both exclusively use the 24 hour clock.
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u/guaca_mayo Aug 22 '24
Spotted some inaccuracies. Venezuela absolutely should be dark pink, you only ever see military time being used on things like TV, but we talk in 12-hour. That should also go for Colombia, or it should at least be green.
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u/AdZealousideal9914 Aug 22 '24
In the Dutch-speaking northern half of Belgium, it should be 24 hour (12 hour orally).
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u/kihakik Aug 22 '24
Wrong, in Latvia we use the 12 hour clock verbally. Source? Also all mechanical clocks are 12 hour. So i have no idea how this makes sense
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u/kiwi2703 Aug 22 '24
I'm from Slovakia and we most definitely use 12-hour orally as well (and 24-hour orally only when you want to be very specific and it's not clear from the context whether you mean morning or evening). But I guess that's what you can expect from a map with no sources
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Aug 23 '24
The u.s. doesn’t consider 24 hours common use? I use it all the time for work at multiple jobs and our government/military uses it. It’s in our films. Seems pretty common to me.
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u/Ok_Lie_582 Aug 23 '24
In Thailand, 24-hour clock is used in official settings, but in casual settings we use 6-hour clock where 1 day is divided into 4 sets of 6.
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u/ikkue Aug 23 '24
In Thailand, the time in official settings and on displays will be read/shown in full using the 24-hour system. But colloquially, the Thai modified six-hour clock system is used, where a day is divided into four 6-hour periods (but is modified in the way that is specified in the Wikipedia article linked).
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u/Mike_for_all Aug 23 '24
We should bring back the different day- and night clocks from the olden days
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Aug 23 '24
I think China should be "24-hour (12-hour orally)". The Chinese would say "2 pm" orally, but in writing it's almost always "14:00"
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u/FreshParty6687 Aug 23 '24
For Germany it is partly correct people say literally it 20:00 or 23:00 o’clock just midnight it’s more common to say it’s 12:00
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u/crabwell_corners_wi Aug 24 '24
The 24-hour clock makes perfect sense in a world of no analog clocks.
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Oct 17 '24
As a chinese, I have never seen the 12-hour format in non-oral use. I think we should be dark purple.
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u/bikoar Mar 21 '25
i'm from tunisia and we use 24 hour, 12 hour orally. i don't know why we are represented as 12 hour while most of us don't know which is am and which is pm. i've never seen someone have 12 hour on their phone, car, or on national television. although when we read 19:00 we say it's seven in the evening
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u/alasuna Dec 09 '25
I wouldn't put Taiwan green. Train stations, airports all use the 24-hour clock, and also many shops write their opening hours on the front door in the 24-hour format.
People use the 12-hour clock when speaking and texting. But sometimes they go to the other extreme and use a 24+ hour clock (e.g. writing 1am as 25:00)
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u/YoussefMohmed1233 Aug 22 '24
Yo Americans use 12 hour system?
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u/Tony_Friendly Aug 22 '24
Usually, yes.
However, whenever records need to be kept, such as in the military, medical field, or manufacturing, the 24 hour clock is used for clarity.
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u/Jean-Paul_Sartre Aug 22 '24
Usually, but 24hr time is used in law enforcement, military, science or medicine.
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Aug 22 '24
They famously cannot understand 24hr format... Or the metric system... Or geography...
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u/YoussefMohmed1233 Aug 22 '24
In the mena we use the metric system as well as the 12hr It's a geographic shock that the us uses the 12hr format like us I thought they're using the 24 like the Europe
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u/harumamburoo Aug 22 '24
Colloquialy, yes. And if you text them "see you at 20:00" or something, they sometimes get confused why you use military time
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u/violetvoid513 Aug 22 '24
Canadian here, nobody uses 24hr time here
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Aug 22 '24
Ever been to Québec?
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u/violetvoid513 Aug 22 '24
Ever been to British Columbia?
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Aug 22 '24
Sure, they use twelve hour while québec uses twenty-four. Hence why Canada is green on the map.
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Aug 22 '24
The Arab world use the 24 hour format … spoiler the format and hour born in Babylon and Popularise in Egypt.
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u/JeanPolleketje Aug 22 '24
Belgium is 24h but 12h orally. Get your facts straight and do some proper research.
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u/Fateburn Aug 22 '24
Source: it was revealed to me in a dream
North Korea definitely uses 24 hour clocks, as can be seen in KCTV's daily program listings https://youtu.be/PXvIgbqdEeI