Date: Mon, 7 Dec 2009 22:45:33 +0600 From: Luther Ma <ma.lude.xj@gmail.com> Message-ID: <C447F652-CB6B-4518-B009-83898D10C41A@gmail.com> | One thing I wonder about is exactly what "zone" refers to. The reason | I ask is that Han living in Xinjiang would not say that they are in | the Urumqi (or Wulumuqi) zone as far as time is concerned. Does it | refer instead an area and population center first and then to a time | zone second? It is (except in a few rare cases that cause problems, mostly in South America I think) the Anglophile name of the biggest population centre (city or town) within the same country, that has a particular wallclock time (and history). Timezones themselves tend not to actually have names in many places, it is just "the time" - but cities and towns generally always have names, and it is very rare for a single city or time to have two different timezones (the ones under discussion being one odd case.) kre