Request for Change of Time Zone Name from Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh to Asia/Ha_Noi
Dear Sir/Madam, I am writing to formally request a change in the naming of the time zone for Viet Nam in your database. Currently, the time zone is listed as "Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh." However, I would like to propose that this be updated to "Asia/Ha_Noi" to reflect the official and more widely recognized name of the time zone. Hà Nội, as the capital city of Viet Nam, is the administrative and political center of the country. It holds significant historical, cultural, and socio-economic importance. Consequently, using Hà Nội as the reference point for the country's time zone would be more appropriate and align with international standards and practices. The change from "Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh" to "Asia/Ha_Noi" would not only reflect the official naming conventions but also aid in reducing confusion among users and developers who rely on accurate and standardized time zone data. This adjustment would bring consistency and clarity to the representation of Viet Nam's time zone in global systems. I kindly ask that IANA consider this request and take the necessary steps to implement the change. Your attention to this matter and efforts to ensure accurate representation in the time zone database are greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to your favorable response. Sincerely, Viet Le
On 03/07/2024 08:11, viet le via tz wrote:
I am writing to formally request a change in the naming of the time zone for Viet Nam in your database. Currently, the time zone is listed as "Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh." However, I would like to propose that this be updated to "Asia/Ha_Noi" to reflect the official and more widely recognized name of the time zone.
There is already a timezone identifier "Asia/Hanoi" but it is defined in the "backzone" file because it has been the same time as "Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh" since 1970. It may or may not be installed on various operating systems.
Hà Nội, as the capital city of Viet Nam, is the administrative and political center of the country. It holds significant historical, cultural, and socio-economic importance. Consequently, using Hà Nội as the reference point for the country's time zone would be more appropriate and align with international standards and practices.
The timezone identifier string for a region is based on the most populous city in the region, not on political centers. For example, the TZ database contains "Asia/Shanghai" (rather than the capital city "Asia/Beijing") for this reason. This policy is described in the TZ "Theory" document: https://ftp.iana.org/tz/theory.html Disclaimer: I am just a subscriber to the mailing list, not the TZ database maintainer, so comments are my own and not official in any way. -- -=( Ian Abbott <abbotti@mev.co.uk> || MEV Ltd. is a company )=- -=( registered in England & Wales. Regd. number: 02862268. )=- -=( Regd. addr.: S11 & 12 Building 67, Europa Business Park, )=- -=( Bird Hall Lane, STOCKPORT, SK3 0XA, UK. || www.mev.co.uk )=-
On Jul 3, 2024, at 10:54 AM, Ian Abbott via tz <tz@iana.org> wrote:
On 03/07/2024 08:11, viet le via tz wrote:
Hà Nội, as the capital city of Viet Nam, is the administrative and political center of the country. It holds significant historical, cultural, and socio-economic importance. Consequently, using Hà Nội as the reference point for the country's time zone would be more appropriate and align with international standards and practices.
The timezone identifier string for a region is based on the most populous city in the region, not on political centers. For example, the TZ database contains "Asia/Shanghai" (rather than the capital city "Asia/Beijing") for this reason. This policy is described in the TZ "Theory" document: https://ftp.iana.org/tz/theory.html
Some further examples of "the capital city is not the city whose name is used for the tzdb timezone the city is in": US: capital: Washington timezone city for the timezone the capital is in: New York Canada: capital: Ottawa timezone city for the timezone the capital is in: Toronto Brazil: capital: Brasilia timezone city for the timezone the capital is in: Sao Paulo China: capital: Beijing timezone city for the timezone the capital is in: Shanghai Australia: capital: Canberra timezone city for the timezone the capital is in: Sydney And, once again, I note that tzids Should. Not. Be. Exposed. To. The. Majority. Of. Users. If a user interface offers cities to choose from, It. Should. Not. Offer. Only. The. Cities. That. Are. Used. In. Tzids., it should offer a wider range of cities and map from the city to the tzid.
Guy Harris wrote:
And, once again, I note that tzids Should. Not. Be. Exposed. To. The. Majority. Of. Users.
This is one of the more important reasons not to change tzids, the actual identifiers: they’re intended for machines, not humans. Humans care about cultural, national, or civic pride; they care which city is the political capital of its nation or which boasts the larger population; they care that a name is spelled “correctly” so as to reflect preferred, modern, natural-language usage and to avoid the appearance of influence by the “wrong” culture or language. Machines don’t care about any of that, but they do care whether the identifier in the database matches the one stored in the environment, or in the translation package that maps identifiers to truly human-readable names. If the identifier for a given time zone is changed, those associations may be broken (hint: not all software that uses tzids understands links, or otherwise uses the full tz software package) and the utility of the tzid is reduced to zero. It is no different from taking a line of code like “int foo = 5;” and changing “foo” to “bar”, while leaving other references in the code to “foo” untouched. Identifiers are sometimes changed like this to reflect official city name changes, or to reflect updated spellings in “common English practice,” which really belies the claim that they are not meant for human consumption. If they are indeed not, as Guy says, then there should be exceedingly few reasons to ever change an existing tzid. -- Doug Ewell, CC, ALB | Lakewood, CO, US | ewellic.org
Doug Ewell via tz <tz@iana.org> writes:
Identifiers are sometimes changed like this to reflect official city name changes, or to reflect updated spellings in “common English practice,” which really belies the claim that they are not meant for human consumption. If they are indeed not, as Guy says, then there should be exceedingly few reasons to ever change an existing tzid.
Indeed. There have been exceptions in the past, such as s/Kiev/Kyiv/, but that seemed more than a little politically driven. I wonder if there shouldn't be a policy that a zone name once chosen does not change, period. theory.html already enunciates some principles of interface stability, and I'm missing why this is not one of them. I do see Do not change established names if they only marginally violate the above guidelines. For example, do not change the existing name <code>Europe/Rome</code> to <code>Europe/Milan</code> merely because Milan's population has grown to be somewhat greater than Rome's. but that seems too weakly worded. Even as it stands, though, it's sufficient reason to reject the present request. regards, tom lane
On 2024-07-03 18:54:14+0100, Ian Abbott via tz <tz@iana.org> wrote:
On 03/07/2024 08:11, viet le via tz wrote:
I am writing to formally request a change in the naming of the time zone for Viet Nam in your database. Currently, the time zone is listed as "Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh." However, I would like to propose that this be updated to "Asia/Ha_Noi" to reflect the official and more widely recognized name of the time zone.
There is already a timezone identifier "Asia/Hanoi" but it is defined in the "backzone" file because it has been the same time as "Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh" since 1970. It may or may not be installed on various operating systems.
Asia/Hanoi is back-linked to Asia/Bangkok because Hanoi is in the GMT+7 timezone from 1968, which is matched with Asia/Bangkok which is this project convention. Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh (or Asia/Saigon for that matter), has a different time system. Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh is in GMT+8 until 1976, and switch to GMT+7 that year. So no! Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh != Asia/Hanoi, and we can't rename Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh to Asia/Hanoi because, the time information there is not the the time information of Hanoi, in whatever context.
Hà Nội, as the capital city of Viet Nam, is the administrative and political center of the country. It holds significant historical, cultural, and socio-economic importance. Consequently, using Hà Nội as the reference point for the country's time zone would be more appropriate and align with international standards and practices.
The timezone identifier string for a region is based on the most populous city in the region, not on political centers. For example, the TZ database contains "Asia/Shanghai" (rather than the capital city "Asia/Beijing") for this reason. This policy is described in the TZ "Theory" document: https://ftp.iana.org/tz/theory.html
Unlike the case of Beijing (Peking) or Shanghai, the case of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh is different. Which city is bigger, regardless of Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh, doesn't matter! Because those 2 cities, (and their covered region North-South of Vietnam) have different timezone system. So no!, we can't rename Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh to Asia/Hanoi, and we can't remove Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh, because Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh has an unique timezone history. -- Danh
participants (6)
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Doug Ewell -
Guy Harris -
Ian Abbott -
Tom Lane -
viet le -
Đoàn Trần Công Danh