On 2019-05-07 07:16:51 (-0700), Vitaliy Stavropolskiy wrote:

Maybe it's time to change the spelling of Ukrainian cities
<https://mfa.gov.ua/en/page/open/id/5418>?
I've found a comment in the tzdb:

This topic comes up on the tz mailing list often.

The position of the tzdb maintainers is:

1. While they look a lot like the names of cities, tz names are "opaque identifiers". They are place names (possibly with old/odd spellings) for the convenience of tzdb maintainers rather than end users.
2. Mapping those opaque identifiers to actual geographic locations (with reasonable granularity) is not within the scope of the tzdb but left to e.g. CLDR.

You should not see "Europe/Kiev" anywhere other than when editing the tzdb. Your operating system / user interface should map Kyiv - or a more granular identifier - to Europe/Kiev without bothering you.

Perhaps the commentary should be extended with a pointer to one of the recent discussions in the mailing list archives?

Philip

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Philip Paeps
Senior Reality Engineer
Ministry of Information