Definition for timezone Asia/Urumqi and Asia/Kashgar, CST, and other questions about Chinese timezones.
1. Currently, Asia/Urumqi and Asia/Kashgar are defined as UTC+6, covering most of Xinjiang and Tibet. However, from brief search result, I cannot see any indication about the UTC+6 usage by ethnic non-han in Xinjiang also exists in Tibet, and Lhasa resident daily activities are apparently only one hours later than those in inner China too. The official announcement about UTC+6 usage in Xinjiang also does not cover Tibet. Thus it seems like those UTC+6 timezones in tz database should not cover Tibet. However, there might be some undocumented official announcement or on the ground usage that I does not notice and require further validation. 2. Actually, which file define the boundary of timezones in tz database? I see they are in comments for China but how about generally? 3. And given Asia/Urumqi is currently defined differently from Asia/Shanghai, and Maoming, Guandong is now using UTC+8, no matter what historical reason might be behind the consideration of putting Maoming, Guangdong in Asia/Urumqi, its current time usage along should have justified putting it in Asia/Shanghai instead 3.a. In http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/2006-July/013704.html , it said Maoming and etc. are in Xinjiang tinezone with data from astro.com but I cannot find anywhere on the site that include historical timezone info and what are their sources? 4. as the name "Central Standard Time" in China was created by ROC, the current main use of this term is for the time in Taiwan and thus it might be unsuitable to use the name for timzone in mainland china area. 5. Why there are 5 different zones in China when the theory file say "if all the clocks in the region have agreed since 1970, don't bother to inclide more than one location even if subregions' clocks disagreed before 1970" ?
Date: Sun, 1 Jan 2017 12:28:00 +0800 From: gfb hjjhjh <c933103@gmail.com> Message-ID: <CAGHjPPKc5fBCgSeU2sxDx_pbhfsJVJZ6LbGowjKO=DbmW47x8Q@mail.gmail.com> | 1. Currently, Asia/Urumqi and Asia/Kashgar are defined as UTC+6, covering | most of Xinjiang and Tibet. I am not going to comment on this one, as I have no info on what people actually use in the affected areas, but if you can collect any evidence of what is actually done, that is the kind of information that we seek (direct evidence from affacted people is usually best). | 2. Actually, which file define the boundary of timezones in tz database? I | see they are in comments for China but how about generally? There is none. The boundaries fluctuate depending on all kinds of things (there may be some official boundaries, but we don't care much about official and are more concerened with actual practice.) There are others who attempt to draw boundaries, but that's not part of this project. We are concerned with which different timezones exist, not with who should use each one. | 3. And given Asia/Urumqi is currently defined differently from | Asia/Shanghai, and Maoming, Guandong is now using UTC+8, no matter what | historical reason might be behind the consideration of putting Maoming, | Guangdong in Asia/Urumqi, its current time usage along should have | justified putting it in Asia/Shanghai instead History matters, not just current times - timestamps from the past need to be interpreted correctly. Many people are content setting their timezone to aything that makes the clock show the correct valuee, but that is really not good. | 4. as the name "Central Standard Time" in China was created by ROC, I always assmed that "CST" in China was "China Standard Time" - but these names are largely meaningless. | 5. Why there are 5 different zones in China when the theory file say "if | all the clocks in the region have agreed since 1970, don't bother to | inclide more than one location even if subregions' clocks disagreed before | 1970" ? We don't generally create a new timezone if the only difference we have is pre 1970, but sometimes... There have been zome zone mergers because of this (which personally I do not like), Basically, more accurate timezones are better, provided the data is correct - the big cost is in maintenance (a change might affect several zones, rather than just one). kre
On Sun, Jan 1, 2017 at 1:51 PM, Robert Elz <kre@munnari.oz.au> wrote:
| 4. as the name "Central Standard Time" in China was created by ROC,
I always assmed that "CST" in China was "China Standard Time" - but these names are largely meaningless.
IIRC, when this issue was discussed on-list a few years ago, I had asked trivia nuts in Taiwan, and was told that historically +0800 referred to Chungyuan Time. Chung Yuan is normally translated as "Central Plains". After the Pinyan orthography reforms, this is now transliterated as Zhongyuan, The "Zhong" is the same character in Zhongguo, from where we get the epithet "Middle Kingdom" for China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhongyuan -- Sanjeev Gupta +65 98551208 http://www.linkedin.com/in/ghane
Robert Elz wrote:
From: gfb hjjhjh <c933103@gmail.com> | 1. Currently, Asia/Urumqi and Asia/Kashgar are defined as UTC+6, covering | most of Xinjiang and Tibet.
I am not going to comment on this one, as I have no info on what people actually use in the affected areas, but if you can collect any evidence of what is actually done, that is the kind of information that we seek (direct evidence from affacted people is usually best).
Currently the commentary for Asia/Urumqi says that it covers "Xinjiang time, used by many in western China". Some people in western China use +06, some use +08 (Asia/Shanghai in our database), and the geographical boundary between the two sets of uses is indistinct.
| 4. as the name "Central Standard Time" in China was created by ROC,
I always assmed that "CST" in China was "China Standard Time"
Yes, it's like KST and JST for Korea and Japan.
| 5. Why there are 5 different zones in China when the theory file say "if | all the clocks in the region have agreed since 1970, don't bother to | inclide more than one location even if subregions' clocks disagreed before | 1970" ?
We don't generally create a new timezone if the only difference we have is pre 1970, but sometimes... There have been zome zone mergers because of this (which personally I do not like), Basically, more accurate timezones are better, provided the data is correct - the big cost is in maintenance (a change might affect several zones, rather than just one).
Time zones like Asia/Kashgar and Asia/Harbin are present only for backward compatibility with earlier versions of the database, which (mistakenly) had different sets of time zone rules since 1970 for these locations. When we discovered the error, we discarded the incorrect data and created backward-compatibility links for the erroneously-created zones. Some tzdb installations don't install the backward-compatibility links and therefore do not have these erroneously-created zones.
On Sun, Jan 1, 2017 at 6:54 PM, Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
Currently the commentary for Asia/Urumqi says that it covers "Xinjiang time, used by many in western China". Some people in western China use +06, some use +08 (Asia/Shanghai in our database), and the geographical boundary between the two sets of uses is indistinct.
My understanding, from speaking to people who have stayed in the region, is that the distinction is highly ethnic and linguistic (Han/non-Han). People are aware of both time zones, and choose either +0800 or not if they are speaking Mandarin, or not. Hotel receptionists will, when speaking to foreign guests, explicitly specify timezone, as will local business contacts. There is no real geographical line here. May I refer you to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_%26_the_City ? -- Sanjeev Gupta +65 98551208 http://www.linkedin.com/in/ghane
My understanding, from speaking to people who have stayed in the region, is that the distinction is highly ethnic and linguistic (Han/non-Han).
A proposal some years back: given the two languages involved, have two zones, each named for the (distinct) English-language translation of the involved language's name for the zone's most populous city. The reaction at the time was that doing so would exacerbate political tensions in the region, so the proposal was not acted on. It may be that times have changed in this regard. @dashdashado On Sun, Jan 1, 2017 at 6:12 AM, Sanjeev Gupta <ghane0@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Jan 1, 2017 at 6:54 PM, Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
Currently the commentary for Asia/Urumqi says that it covers "Xinjiang time, used by many in western China". Some people in western China use +06, some use +08 (Asia/Shanghai in our database), and the geographical boundary between the two sets of uses is indistinct.
My understanding, from speaking to people who have stayed in the region, is that the distinction is highly ethnic and linguistic (Han/non-Han). People are aware of both time zones, and choose either +0800 or not if they are speaking Mandarin, or not. Hotel receptionists will, when speaking to foreign guests, explicitly specify timezone, as will local business contacts. There is no real geographical line here.
May I refer you to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_%26_the_City ?
-- Sanjeev Gupta +65 98551208 <+65%209855%201208> http://www.linkedin.com/in/ghane
| 4. as the name "Central Standard Time" in China was created by ROC,
I always assmed that "CST" in China was "China Standard Time" - but these names are largely meaningless.
IIRC, when this issue was discussed on-list a few years ago, I had asked trivia nuts in Taiwan, and was told that historically +0800 referred to Chungyuan Time. Chung Yuan is normally translated as "Central Plains". After the Pinyan orthography reforms, this is now transliterated as Zhongyuan, The "Zhong" is the same character in Zhongguo, from where we get the epithet "Middle Kingdom" for China.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhongyuan
-- Sanjeev Gupta +65 98551208 http://www.linkedin.com/in/ghane
True, but nowadays only people in Taiwan call their time as Chung Yuan/Zhongyuan/Central plains time despite it is referring to part of mainland China. The historical name is abandoned and unknown within mainland China. I guess it can also be interpreted as C=China, but that would violate the rule of not to use country name for timezone name, although this is not a major violation and can probably be explained by stating that the name china mean something more than the country's name
Currently the commentary for Asia/Urumqi says that it covers "Xinjiang time, used by many in western China". Some people in western China use +06, some use +08 (Asia/Shanghai in our database), and the geographical boundary between the two sets of uses is indistinct.
My understanding, from speaking to people who have stayed in the region, is that the distinction is highly ethnic and linguistic (Han/non-Han). People are aware of both time zones, and choose either +0800 or not if they are speaking Mandarin, or not. Hotel receptionists will, when speaking to foreign guests, explicitly specify timezone, as will local business contacts. There is no real geographical line here.
May I refer you to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_%26_the_City ?
-- Sanjeev Gupta +65 98551208 http://www.linkedin.com/in/ghane
hum yes, the divide is ethnical, but so far all the sources i have read seems to be for only Xinjiang and none of them cover Tibet/Qinghai, i.e. no indication saying ethnic non-han in Tibet/Qinghai are also using this UTC+6. So, where is the boundary that nobody use UTC+6? If it is Xinjiang only then the commentary can be edited to better reflect the usage situation
participants (5)
-
Arthur David Olson -
gfb hjjhjh -
Paul Eggert -
Robert Elz -
Sanjeev Gupta