I have two resources, one is a map with the following 30 regions of China: Hainan Hong Kong Anhui Zhejiang Jiangxi Jiangsu Jilin Qinghai Fujian Heilongjiang Henan Hebei Hunan Hubei Xinjiang Xizang Gansu Guangxi Guizhou Liaoning Nei Mongol Ningxia Beijing Shanghai Shanxi Shandong Shaanxi Sichuan Tianjin Yunnan Guangdong The other is a map with around 2800+ counties of China, but I have absolutely no idea how to combine it to get the corresponding timezones of tz database (or Shanks and Pottenger, if you like). I can combine the maps and see which counties lie within a region. I can also copy-paste map fractions to combine the final timezone map that I want. But I don't have any information how to combine it apart from the tz database itself, which has very little detail (Paul, your email was more helpful than the tz database itself!). So I have a good opportunity to a fine-granularity approach. Clearly, it must also be possible to improve the text in the tz database that defines the timezones, for instance to include Jilin explicitly etc. I can't help with the changes of chinese administrative boundaries since 1980, or earlier. If the timezones did not follow administrative boundaries, that will make my task more difficult of course. I send you a GIF file Gansu.gif within Gansu.zip that contains a screenshot of a portion of the Gansu region with its counties (many mail programs only accept zip files and no other types of attachments, for fear of imbeddeded viruses, trojans etc. Nowadays, you can't even trust your browser!).
"Zhe Su" <james.su@gmail.com> writes: Actually those are legacy timezones which are not used anymore.
Paul Eggert writes
Yes, if you don't care about pre-1980 time stamps, then you can use TZ='Asia/Shanghai', or even TZ='CST-8' on POSIX hosts.
However, if you do care about old time stamps, then Asia/Harbin etc. are not "legacy", because they have a practical difference for programs running on today's computers.
I guess I forgot to mention that it is the historic timezones that interest me, while the current division of China in only one timezone is rather trivial. The idea is to be able to calculate what was the local time in Harbin or Lishui when it was 10:15:00 GMT 14.th. of August 1941 (as an example). And no, the answer is surely not 18:15:00! Regards, - Jesper