The Big East

Written by Pat's Papers | Friday, 12 March 2010 10:16 AM

Growing up in the west I was always a little resentful of all the attention the Eastern time zone got. Like the graphic that noted Good Morning America was “Live ET.”  Or when ESPN would announce that a big game was scheduled for “1 pm Eastern” and leave it to the rest of us to do the math.

It’s not that I didn’t recognize the practicality. I knew it was the most populated time zone. And in the case of US TV viewers, it’s also the first time zone. But it wasn’t until I picked up USA Today this morning that I fully understood the dominance of the east.

The paper’s front page “Snapshot” breaks down the US population by time zone.  47.5% of Americans are in the Eastern time zone. When you roll in the Central zone you’re up to three-fourths of the population.

I guess this falls into the same category as the hockey game bathroom break graph that’s been getting so much attention on the site this week: It’s not a huge surprise but the impact is greater when you see a clear presentation of the actual numbers. 

Census.gov has some other interesting population breakdowns if you’re curious

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