I'm forwarding this message from Emma Baillie, who is not on the time zone mailing list. Those of you who are on the list should direct replies appropriately. (Emma Baillie: within... ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzcode2006n.tar.gz ...there's a "Theory" file explaining the principles behind naming zones. Shanghai is used because it's the most populous city--at least by some measures--in the time zone of interest. Note that the eastern United States time zone where I live is known as "America/New_York" and not "America/Washington"--we're not singling out China for different treatment.) --ado -----Original Message----- From: Emma Baillie [mailto:ebaillie@aconex.com] Sent: Monday, October 23, 2006 2:19 AM To: tz@lecserver.nci.nih.gov Subject: Beijing Time? My workplace has recently included data form the tz database into our web services, which are used in various different countries around the world including (recently) China. Our Chinese customers are quite unhappy about the fact that their timezone is specified as "Asia/Shanghai" not "Asia/Beijing". As one customer commented: "Every one knows whole china has only one time zone which was officially named Beijing Time Zone, My client told me that Chinese people really can not understand why we missed our Capital City Time Zone on the list. They think it is disrespectful." I see from the official Chinese government website, that this also refers to the Chinese time zone as "Beijing Time" http://english.gov.cn/2005-08/25/content_26048.htm. I'm wondering if there is any reason (other than historical) to continue to refer to the time zone in China as "Asia/Shanghai". Should it not be updated to reflect current Chinese usage? Of course, in my own particular instance I can simply change it in our application (and will!) But this seems like a change which would be more generally useful. thanks emma baillie