"what people in a region think" is essentially unknowable. What
governmental authorities define is generally well recorded. Where we
can accurately fnd data to indicate that a region is not following the
lead of the governmental authorities then I agree we need to make sure
that those people's experience can be expressed in some form by TZDB.
But I think that governmental authorities so dominate the field of
timezones, and what our downstream users perceive of timezones, that
we need to reflect it. Putting our heads in the sand and pretending
that governmental authorities don't exist is not helpful.

Other than Asia/Urumqi, I’m hard pressed to call to mind a region where a significant section of the population has basically decided to defy all governmental authority. However, there are areas where *which* governmental authority is relevant is a very live question (the Crimea comes to mind immediately). The “what people in a region think” standard allows TZDB to avoid taking sides about which political entity is the “legitimate” one.

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| Frederick F. Gleason, Jr. |             Chief Developer             |

|                           |             Paravel Systems             |

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|         A room without books is like a body without a soul.         |

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|                                                         -- Cicero   |

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