When I added Pacific/Enderbury in 1993, I thought it was the most-populous location in its timezone. I was wrong - it has been uninhabited since 1942. I discovered my mistake this week when doing the recent timezone-coalescing changes. It shouldn’t be surprising that this problem has not been reported, as only two dozen people live in the timezone, they’re rotated in and out, and they likely don’t have a good Internet connection. Leaving the name alone wouldn’t work because Pacific/Enderbury should be at -00 now, our convention for uninhabited locations. So, replace the name with Pacific/Kanton. By strange coincidence, Kanton has been in the news recently, for reasons similar to why Enderbury was in the news in the 1930s; see: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40471/china-wants-to-revive-a-strategi... * NEWS: Mention this. * australasia, zone.tab, zone1970.tab (Pacific/Kanton): New zone, replacing ... * backward (Pacific/Enderbury): New backward-compatibility link * backzone: Copy of old data, with fixes for uninhabited times, which includes the current time. --- NEWS | 13 +++++++++++-- australasia | 19 ++++++++++++++++++- backward | 1 + backzone | 12 ++++++++++++ zone.tab | 2 +- zone1970.tab | 2 +- 6 files changed, 44 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-) diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS index 04c45e9..53890a7 100644 --- a/NEWS +++ b/NEWS @@ -2,6 +2,13 @@ News for the tz database Unreleased, experimental changes + Changes to zone name + + Rename Pacific/Enderbury to Pacific/Kanton. When we added + Enderbury in 1993, we did not know that it is uninhabited and that + Kanton (population two dozen) is the only inhabited location in + that timezone. The old name is now a backward-compatility link. + Changes to past timestamps Correct many pre-1993 transitions, fixing entries originally @@ -14,11 +21,13 @@ Unreleased, experimental changes - Guyana: corrected LMT for Georgetown; the introduction of standard time in 1911, not 1915; and corrections to 1975 and 1992 transitions + - Kanton: uninhabited before 1937-08-31 - Niue: observed -11:20 in 1951-1978 - Portugal: DST was observed in 1950 - Tonga: adopted standard time in 1945 not 1901, and moved from +12:20 to +13 in 1961 not 1941 Additional fixes to entries in the 'backzone' file include: + - Enderbury: inhabited only 1860/1885 and 1938-03-06/1942-02-09 - The Gambia: 1933 and 1942 transitions - Malawi: several 1911 through 1925 transitions - Sierra Leone: several 1913 through 1941 transitions, and DST @@ -955,8 +964,8 @@ Release 2018d - 2018-03-22 07:05:46 -0700 Institute in Montevideo. (Thanks to Jeremie Bonjour, Tim Parenti, and Michael Deckers.) - Enderbury and Kiritimati skipped New Year's Eve 1994, not - New Year's Day 1995. (Thanks to Kerry Shetline.) + East Kiribati skipped New Year's Eve 1994, not New Year's Day 1995. + (Thanks to Kerry Shetline.) Fix the 1912-01-01 transition for Portugal and its colonies. This transition was at 00:00 according to the new UT offset, not diff --git a/australasia b/australasia index 8e952ad..5cbc0c8 100644 --- a/australasia +++ b/australasia @@ -457,7 +457,7 @@ Zone Pacific/Guam -14:21:00 - LMT 1844 Dec 31 # Zone NAME STDOFF RULES FORMAT [UNTIL] Zone Pacific/Tarawa 11:32:04 - LMT 1901 # Bairiki 12:00 - +12 -Zone Pacific/Enderbury -11:24:20 - LMT 1901 +Zone Pacific/Kanton 0 - -00 1937 Aug 31 -12:00 - -12 1979 Oct -11:00 - -11 1994 Dec 31 13:00 - +13 @@ -1735,6 +1735,23 @@ Zone Pacific/Efate 11:13:16 - LMT 1912 Jan 13 # Vila # One source for this is page 202 of: Bartky IR. One Time Fits All: # The Campaigns for Global Uniformity (2007). +# Kanton + +# From Paul Eggert (2021-05-27): +# Kiribati's +13 timezone is represented by Kanton, its only populated +# island. (It was formerly spelled "Canton", but Gilbertese lacks "C".) +# Kanton was settled on 1937-08-31 by two British radio operators +# <https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1937v02/d94>; +# Americans came the next year and built an airfield, partly to +# establish airline service and perhaps partly anticipating the +# next war. Aside from the war, the airfield was used by commercial +# airlines until long-range jets became standard; although currently +# for emergency use only, China says it is considering rebuilding the +# airfield for high-end niche tourism. Kanton has about two dozen +# people, caretakers who rotate in from the rest of Kiribati in 2-5 +# year shifts, and who use some of the leftover structures +# <http://pipa.neaq.org/2012/06/images-of-kanton-island.html>. + # Kwajalein # From an AP article (1993-08-22): diff --git a/backward b/backward index 9e22754..0fec5e4 100644 --- a/backward +++ b/backward @@ -208,6 +208,7 @@ Link Pacific/Chatham NZ-CHAT Link America/Denver Navajo Link Asia/Shanghai PRC Link Pacific/Port_Moresby Pacific/Chuuk +Link Pacific/Kanton Pacific/Enderbury Link Pacific/Tarawa Pacific/Funafuti Link Pacific/Honolulu Pacific/Johnston Link Pacific/Tarawa Pacific/Majuro diff --git a/backzone b/backzone index f5b20fa..4d69a3f 100644 --- a/backzone +++ b/backzone @@ -1566,6 +1566,18 @@ Zone Pacific/Chuuk -13:52:52 - LMT 1844 Dec 31 Link Pacific/Chuuk Pacific/Truk Link Pacific/Chuuk Pacific/Yap +# Phoenix Islands, Kiribati +# From Paul Eggert (2021-05-27): +# Enderbury was inhabited 1860/1880s to mine guano, and 1938-03-06/1942-02-09 +# for aviation (ostensibly commercial, but military uses foreseen). +# The 19th-century dates are approximate. See Pacific/Kanton for +# the currently-inhabited representative for this timezone. +Zone Pacific/Enderbury 0 - -00 1860 + -11:24:20 - LMT 1885 + 0 - -00 1938 Mar 6 + -12:00 - -12 1942 Feb 9 + 0 - -00 + # Tuvalu Zone Pacific/Funafuti 11:56:52 - LMT 1901 12:00 - +12 diff --git a/zone.tab b/zone.tab index cbf4b91..e2062cf 100644 --- a/zone.tab +++ b/zone.tab @@ -232,7 +232,7 @@ KE -0117+03649 Africa/Nairobi KG +4254+07436 Asia/Bishkek KH +1133+10455 Asia/Bangkok KI +0125+17300 Pacific/Tarawa Gilbert Islands -KI -0308-17105 Pacific/Enderbury Phoenix Islands +KI -0247-17143 Pacific/Kanton Phoenix Islands KI +0152-15720 Pacific/Kiritimati Line Islands KM -1141+04316 Africa/Nairobi KN +1718-06243 America/Puerto_Rico diff --git a/zone1970.tab b/zone1970.tab index a02d94d..6b9d288 100644 --- a/zone1970.tab +++ b/zone1970.tab @@ -188,7 +188,7 @@ JP +353916+1394441 Asia/Tokyo KE,DJ,ER,ET,KM,MG,SO,TZ,UG,YT -0117+03649 Africa/Nairobi KG +4254+07436 Asia/Bishkek KI,MH,TV,UM,WF +0125+17300 Pacific/Tarawa Gilberts, Marshalls, Tuvalu, Wallis & Futuna, Wake -KI -0308-17105 Pacific/Enderbury Phoenix Islands +KI -0247-17143 Pacific/Kanton Phoenix Islands KI +0152-15720 Pacific/Kiritimati Line Islands KP +3901+12545 Asia/Pyongyang KR +3733+12658 Asia/Seoul -- 2.27.0