France has the world’s largest number of time zones when its overseas territories are included.
France uses 12 standard time zones across its territory, and a seasonal daylight-saving offset can create a 13th local time in part of the year. Metropolitan France occupies one time zone, Central European Time, but French territories are scattered across the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans.
These territories include French Guiana in South America, Réunion in the Indian Ocean, New Caledonia in the Pacific, and French Polynesia. Their locations on different sides of the International Date Line account for much of France’s wide time-zone spread.
Russia has 11 time zones across its continuous territory, while the United States reaches a larger total when its outlying territories are counted. The answer therefore depends on whether overseas possessions are included; for the standard geographic trivia formulation, France leads.