Re: Some modifications of China related timezone info.
Ken Pizzini <tz.@explicate.org> writes:
the populations do seem to have converged significantly over the 15 or so years since the Asia/Shanghai entry was created, and the trend lines strongly suggest that if Beijing has not yet overtaken Shanghai as the largest city in China, it is very likely to do so soon.
That depends on whose estimates one uses, and what one means by "soon". If we take estimates recently published by Chinese news agencies for the end of 2005, for example, Shanghai had 17.78 million people with a 2.030% annual growth rate since 2000 <http://english.sina.com/china/1/2006/0406/72038.html>, whereas Beijing had 15.36 million people with a 2.135% annual growth rate in the same period <http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-04/20/content_4451085.htm>, so at current rates it will take about 142 years for Beijing's population to surpass Shanghai, at which point both cities will have populations of about 309 million people. To put it mildly, I don't have a lot of faith in these estimates, but until this thing settles out with a clear winner there's no rush. There is an advantage of keeping the Zone names stable, which our other correspondents have reminded us of periodically. I'd rather not get into the business of discussing zone names changes based on guesswork forecasts of population growth. (It's hard enough just keeping track of the clocks. :-)
Hi, So, is it ok to just add "Asia/Beijing" into the database along with "Asia/Shanghai"? So that people can choose whatever they want. Regards James Su On 4/29/06, Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
Ken Pizzini <tz.@explicate.org> writes:
the populations do seem to have converged significantly over the 15 or so years since the Asia/Shanghai entry was created, and the trend lines strongly suggest that if Beijing has not yet overtaken Shanghai as the largest city in China, it is very likely to do so soon.
That depends on whose estimates one uses, and what one means by "soon". If we take estimates recently published by Chinese news agencies for the end of 2005, for example, Shanghai had 17.78 million people with a 2.030% annual growth rate since 2000 <http://english.sina.com/china/1/2006/0406/72038.html>, whereas Beijing had 15.36 million people with a 2.135% annual growth rate in the same period <http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-04/20/content_4451085.htm>, so at current rates it will take about 142 years for Beijing's population to surpass Shanghai, at which point both cities will have populations of about 309 million people.
To put it mildly, I don't have a lot of faith in these estimates, but until this thing settles out with a clear winner there's no rush. There is an advantage of keeping the Zone names stable, which our other correspondents have reminded us of periodically. I'd rather not get into the business of discussing zone names changes based on guesswork forecasts of population growth. (It's hard enough just keeping track of the clocks. :-)
"Zhe Su" <james.su@gmail.com> writes:
So, is it ok to just add "Asia/Beijing" into the database along with "Asia/Shanghai"? So that people can choose whatever they want.
For now I'd rather not do that, for the reasons already mentioned.
Hi, I still can't agree with you. It's harmless to add "Asia/Beijing". And China now uses only one timezone, which is called officially "China Standard Time" and indeed it's known as Beijing Time. Now we have five timezones for China in asia/zone.tab: "Asia/Shanghai", "Asia/Chongqing", "Asia/Urumqi", "Asia/Harbin", "Asia/Kashgar". But they are known as historic timezones (according to comments in asia file). After 1949, the establishing of People's Republic of China, we uses only one timezone, which is called "Beijing Time" or "China Standard Time" officially. So if you think we should choose a most populous city of China to represent the only one "China Standard Time", that is Chongqing rather than Shanghai, because Chongqing has more than 27 million population. But, I still think using "Asia/Beijing" to represent the only timezone used in Peoples Republic of China is the most reasonable way. Regards James Su On 4/29/06, Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
"Zhe Su" <james.su@gmail.com> writes:
So, is it ok to just add "Asia/Beijing" into the database along with "Asia/Shanghai"? So that people can choose whatever they want.
For now I'd rather not do that, for the reasons already mentioned.
Hi, And in my opinion, using the rule of using most populous location to identify each region is not a generic way for every countries. IMO, we should use different rules for different countries to fit their local circumstances. For China (or more exactly, PRC), it's apparently not suitable to use the population rule. Because the most populous location in China is Chongqing, which is belong to Sichuan province, the most populous province of China. But Chongqing is far less developed than Shanghai and Beijing, so it's far less popular than Beijing and Shanghai. So for China, I'd prefer to use the most important and popular location, Beijing, the capital of China to identify our unique timezone. Regards James Su On 4/29/06, Zhe Su <james.su@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi, I still can't agree with you. It's harmless to add "Asia/Beijing". And China now uses only one timezone, which is called officially "China Standard Time" and indeed it's known as Beijing Time. Now we have five timezones for China in asia/zone.tab: "Asia/Shanghai", "Asia/Chongqing", "Asia/Urumqi", "Asia/Harbin", "Asia/Kashgar". But they are known as historic timezones (according to comments in asia file). After 1949, the establishing of People's Republic of China, we uses only one timezone, which is called "Beijing Time" or "China Standard Time" officially. So if you think we should choose a most populous city of China to represent the only one "China Standard Time", that is Chongqing rather than Shanghai, because Chongqing has more than 27 million population. But, I still think using "Asia/Beijing" to represent the only timezone used in Peoples Republic of China is the most reasonable way.
Regards James Su
On 4/29/06, Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
"Zhe Su" <james.su@gmail.com> writes:
So, is it ok to just add "Asia/Beijing" into the database along with "Asia/Shanghai"? So that people can choose whatever they want.
For now I'd rather not do that, for the reasons already mentioned.
participants (2)
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Paul Eggert -
Zhe Su