Request for consideration of a dedicated time zone identifier for Coyhaique, Aysén Region, Chile
Dear Time Zone Database Maintainers, I am writing from Coyhaique, the capital city of the Aysén Region in Chile, regarding the recent adoption of UTC−03:00 in our region. Currently, many operating systems, applications, and online services identify our location using the existing "America/Punta_Arenas" time zone. While this provides the correct UTC offset, Coyhaique and the Aysén Region do not appear as a selectable or identifiable location in many systems. This can create confusion for local users, organizations, businesses, and visitors who are attempting to verify or configure the correct local time. I would like to respectfully inquire whether the creation of a dedicated time zone identifier, such as "America/Coyhaique", could be considered for inclusion in the IANA Time Zone Database. I understand that new identifiers are generally created when there are historical differences or the possibility of future divergence in timekeeping rules. However, the Aysén Region now operates under UTC−03:00 and has a distinct regional identity and administrative significance that may justify separate representation within systems that rely on the IANA database. In addition, Coyhaique serves as one of the principal gateways to Chilean Patagonia and is the administrative, commercial, and logistical center of the Aysén Region. Every year, the city receives a significant number of domestic and international visitors who rely on digital systems to coordinate flights, accommodations, tours, transportation, and business activities. The absence of a specific identifier for Coyhaique in many operating systems and platforms may create uncertainty regarding the local time zone, particularly for visitors who are unfamiliar with the relationship between Aysén and the "America/Punta_Arenas" identifier. A dedicated reference to Coyhaique could improve clarity and user experience for travelers, businesses, service providers, and software systems operating within the region. If a new identifier is not currently considered necessary, I would greatly appreciate any clarification regarding the criteria that would need to be met for such consideration in the future. Thank you for your time and for the important work you do in maintaining this essential global resource. Kind regards, Víctor Alfonso Coyhaique, Aysén Región. Chile
On 2026-06-11 08:07, Victor Alfonso via tz wrote:
I would like to respectfully inquire whether the creation of a dedicated time zone identifier, such as "America/Coyhaique", could be considered for inclusion in the IANA Time Zone Database.
We did that in TZDB 2025b (2025-03-22), which incorporated Tim Parenti's America/Coyhaique patch dated 2025-03-20[1]. Unfortunately this info can take some time to propagate, as downstream packages have their own release schedules that can slow things down for many months. For example, as I understand things, CLDR didn't add America/Coyhaique until CLDR 48, released 2025-10-30. And the current Node.js LTS release, Node.JS 24 "Krypton" which was released 2025-10-28, is pinned to a V8 JavaScript engine that that bundles CLDR 47 and therefore lacks localization for America/Coyhaique, even though it may support America/Coyhaique at the raw time zone level. This lack of localization was not fixed in Krypton until version 24.13.0, released 2026-01-13. And besides, many Node-based systems are still running older Node releases. So if you're seeing a problem with a Node-based system, it could well be that you'll need to update that system's time zone infrastructure. This problem is not limited to Node.js or to JavaScript. You'll see similar delays in applications based on Java, Microsoft Windows, or any platform that waits for official CLDR releases or has other reasons to delay. Although this is unfortunate, there's not much we can do about it in TZDB itself. Fixing problems like these requires identifing which software stack you're using, and reporting bugs to the specific developers or operators in question. Although CLDR moves too slowly in this area, at this point it's not really CLDR's fault if you're not seeing America/Coyhaique; it's somebody downstream from CLDR, and you'll need to find out who that is for your particular situation. [1]: https://github.com/eggert/tz/commit/ee73bc3a722d297495062b649abc849cfabd588c
participants (2)
-
Paul Eggert -
Victor Alfonso