I was ever so glad to receive the recent email fro Chuck Ellis of MaconUSA, LLC. I have been busy behind the scenes collecting and organizing the boundary data for the time zone map capability previously discussed in the tz archive at elsie.nci.nih.gov. This was without the knowledge of, or data from, maconusa.com. I wanted to respond to Chuck Ellis' email in a timely fashion, and in lieu of what I read in that email, I wanted to introduce my internal time zone boundary numbering scheme for the current set of countries with multiple internal time zones that I have been working on to facilitate discussion of the status and accuracy of the boundary data associated with these key otherwise missing boundaries. Following up on the ISO-3166 work already done with respect to the Time Zone Database (tz), I organized my efforts around that standard as well. So, high level compatibility with maconusa.com should already be achieved. Likewise, I gathered the 1:1,000,000 scale Digital Chart of the World (DCW) data and augmented it with 1:100,000 USGS state and county data from the 1990 census. I realized that many of the poltical boundaries had changed since 1992, when the version of DCW to which I obtained access was released. I was hoping to update that with the Vector Smart Map Level 0 (VMap0) data once I could get my hands on it. I was also prepared to work backward from the .pdf map files that are posted by the CIA as part of their web page providing access to "The World Factbook 1996", as a last resort. There is an actual a time zone map of the world published there as well, for what it is worth. This web page is located at or near http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/nsolo/wfb-all.htm AS Chuck Ellis' email arrived, I still did not have accurate data for, or descriptions of, the time zone boundaries inside of countries with multiple time zones, although boundaries 05.01, 06.01, 07.01, 15.01, and 17.01 in the attached table may simply be the distinction between the mainland and the island(s) in question. As for viewing map data, I acquired a copy of GRASS and Grassland (a beta copy for SunOS5 from LAS, Inc. of Canada of the latter) which permit the viewing of VPF (DCW, VMap0) and SDTS (USGS) file formats. I am really new at all of this. So, exactly how to proceed to take any of the various .zip files at maconusa.com and to make use of these Unix-based viewers would be appreciated. (I would prefer to stay Unix-based, if that is at all possible.) The goal, as Chuck Ellis observed, should most definitely be to create a set of time zone polygons, because the ability to automatically update the gazetteer whenever a change is introduced is straightforward, simple, and an already solved problem with already written available code. Anyhow, here is the ISO-3166 sorted list of internal time zone boundaries to which I have been alluding. Of the 30 ISO-3166 "countries" with multiple zones in the tz database, there are only 23 which currently have multiple time zones. These 23 countries have 69 internal boundaries by my current tally. As we are all aware, multiple time zones include the distinction between the boundaries when Daylight Savings Time is in effect, e.g. the distinction between the U.S. Eastern Time Zone with and without that portion of Indiana that does not observe daylight savings time attached in the standard time October-to-April period (boundary 22.07) and in the daylight time April-to-October period (boundary 22.08), respectively, of any given year. Note that Antarctica and Greenland boundaries isolate the tz zones in question from the rest of the land mass, as opposed to separating a series of mostly vertical strips from each other like the boundaries of the other 21 ISO-3166 "countries" listed below. Dave Skinner dave@kirdu.jpl.nasa.gov 818-354-0114 (voice) 818-393-9900 (fax) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 01. AQ Antarctica ------------------------------------------------------------- 01.01 |Antarctica/Palmer --4:00 ChileAQ -------------------------------------------------------------| ------------------------------------------------------------- 01.02 |Antarctica/Mawson +6:00 None -------------------------------------------------------------| ------------------------------------------------------------- 01.03 |Antarctica/Casey +8:00 None -------------------------------------------------------------| ------------------------------------------------------------- 01.04 |Antarctica/DumontDUrville +10:00 None -------------------------------------------------------------| ------------------------------------------------------------- 01.05 |Antarctica/McMurdo +12:00 NZAQ -------------------------------------------------------------| 02. AU Australia Indian/Christmas +7:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 02.01 Australia, Western Australia/Perth +8:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 02.02 Australia, Central Australia/Adelaide +9:30 AS ----------------------------------------------------- 02.03 Australia/Darwin +9:30 Aus --> None ------------------------------------------------------------- 02.04 Australia, Eastern Australia/Brisbane +10:00 AQ --> None ----------------------------------------------------- 02.05 Australia/Hobart +10:00 AT ----------------------------------------------------- 02.06 Australia/Sydney +10:00 AN ------------------------------------------------------------- 02.07 Australia/Lord_Howe +10:30 LH 03. BR Brazil America/Porto_Acre --5:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 03.01 Brazil, Western America/Cuiaba --4:00 Brazil ----------------------------------------------------- 03.02 America/Manaus --4:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 03.03 Brazil, Eastern America/Fortaleza --3:00 None ----------------------------------------------------- 03.04 America/Sao_Paulo --3:00 Brazil ------------------------------------------------------------- 03.05 America/Noronha --2:00 None 04. CA Canada Canada, Pacific America/Vancouver --8:00 Vanc ------------------------------------------------------------- 04.01 Canada, Mountain America/Dawson_Creek --7:00 None ----------------------------------------------------- 04.02 America/Edmonton --7:00 Edm ------------------------------------------------------------- 04.03 Canada, Central America/Regina --6:00 None ----------------------------------------------------- 04.04 America/Winnipeg --6:00 Winn ------------------------------------------------------------- 04.05 Canada, Eastern America/Montreal --5:00 Mont ------------------------------------------------------------- 04.06 Canada, Atlantic America/Halifax --4:00 Halifax ------------------------------------------------------------- 04.07 Canada, Newfoundland America/St_Johns --3:30 StJohns 05. CL Chile Pacific/Easter --6:00 Chile ------------------------------------------------------------- 05.01 America/Santiago --4:00 Chile 06. EC Ecuador Pacific/Galapagos --6:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 06.01 America/Guayaquil --5:00 None 07. ES Spain Atlantic/Canary +0:00 EU ------------------------------------------------------------- 07.01 Europe/Madrid +1:00 EU 08. FM Micronesia Pacific/Yap +10:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 08.01 Pacific/Ponape (Pohnpei) +11:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 08.02 Pacific/Kosrae +12:00 None 09. GL Greenland ------------------------------------------------------------- 09.01 |America/Thule --4:00 Thule -------------------------------------------------------------| ------------------------------------------------------------- 09.02 |America/Godthab (Nuuk) --3:00 EU -------------------------------------------------------------| ------------------------------------------------------------- 09.03 |America/Scoresbysund (Ittoqqortoormiit) --1:00 EU -------------------------------------------------------------| 10. ID Indonesia Asia/Jakarta +7:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 10.01 Asia/Ujung_Pandang +8:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 10.02 Asia/Jayapura +9:00 None 11. JP Japan Asia/Ishigaki +8:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 11.01 Asia/Tokyo +9:00 None 12. KI Kiribati Pacific/Tarawa +12:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 12.01 Pacific/Enderbury +13:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 12.02 Pacific/Kiritimati +14:00 None 13. KZ Kazakhstan Asia/Aqtau +4:00 E--Eur ------------------------------------------------------------- 13.01 Asia/Aqtobe +5:00 E--Eur ------------------------------------------------------------- 13.02 Asia/Alma--Ata +6:00 E-Eur 14. MX Mexico Mexico, Pacific America/Tijuana --8:00 Mexico ------------------------------------------------------------- 14.01 Mexico, Mountain America/Mazatlan --7:00 Mexico ------------------------------------------------------------- 14.02 Mexico, Central America/Mexico_City --6:00 Mexico 15. NZ New_Zealand Pacific/Auckland +12:00 NZ ------------------------------------------------------------- 15.01 Pacific/Chatham +12:45 Chatham 16. PF French_Polynesia Pacific/Tahiti --10:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 16.01 Pacific/Marquesas --9:30 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 16.02 Pacific/Gambier --9:00 None 17. PT Portugal Atlantic/Azores --1:00 EU ------------------------------------------------------------- 17.01 Europe/Lisbon +0:00 EU 18. RU Russia Europe/Kaliningrad +2:00 Russia ------------------------------------------------------------- 18.01 Europe/Moscow +3:00 Russia ------------------------------------------------------------- 18.02 Europe/Samara +4:00 Russia ------------------------------------------------------------- 18.03 Europe/Yekaterinburg +5:00 Russia ------------------------------------------------------------- 18.04 Asia/Novosibirsk +6:00 Russia ------------------------------------------------------------- 18.05 Asia/Krasnoyarsk +7:00 Russia ------------------------------------------------------------- 18.06 Asia/Irkutsk +8:00 Russia ------------------------------------------------------------- 18.07 Asia/Yakutsk +9:00 Russia ------------------------------------------------------------- 18.08 Asia/Vladivostok +10:00 Russia ------------------------------------------------------------- 18.09 Asia/Magadan +11:00 Russia ------------------------------------------------------------- 18.10 Asia/Kamchatka +12:00 Russia ------------------------------------------------------------- 18.11 Asia/Anadyr +13:00 Russia 19. SJ Svalbard_&_Jan_Mayen Atlantic/Jan_Mayen (Svalbard) --1:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 19.01 Arctic/Longyearbyen +1:00 EU 20. UA Ukraine Europe/Kiev +2:00 EU ------------------------------------------------------------- 20.01 Europe/Simferopol +3:00 Crimea 21. UM US_minor_outlying_islands Pacific/Midway --11:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 21.01 United_States, Samoa Pacific/Johnston --10:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 21.02 Pacific/Wake +12:00 None 22. US United_States United_States, Hawaii--Aleutian America/Adak --10:00 US ----------------------------------------------------- 22.01 Pacific/Honolulu --10:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 22.02 United_States, Alaska America/Anchorage --9:00 US ------------------------------------------------------------- 22.03 United_States, Pacific America/Los_Angeles --8:00 US ------------------------------------------------------------- 22.04 United_States, Mountain America/Denver --7:00 US ----------------------------------------------------- 22.05 America/Phoenix --7:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 22.06 United_States, Central America/Chicago --6:00 US ------------------------------------------------------------- 22.07 United_States, Eastern America/Indianapolis --5:00 None ----------------------------------------------------- 22.08 America/New_York --5:00 US 23. ZR Zaire Africa/Kinshasa +1:00 None ------------------------------------------------------------- 23.01 Africa/Lubumbashi +2:00 None