A correspondent who is usually well informed about time zone matters sent me a correction to my time zone data for Western Sahara. He says that Western Sahara observes daylight saving time, just as Morocco does. The tz database shows it as Africa/El_Aaiun with no DST. The status of Western Sahara is disputed, but Morocco has de facto control over some 80% of the territory, including El Aaiun (a.k.a. Laâyoune). It seems logical that the clocks would be set to the same time as Morocco. For what it's worth, the CIA World Factbook says that in Western Sahara, DST "begins last Sunday in April; ends last Sunday in September." If it can be confirmed that El Aaiun's time is the same as Morocco's, the Zone info for Africa/El_Aaiun should be changed to match Africa/Casablanca, at least after 1991-09-06 (the date of the cease-fire that ended the Western Sahara War), and possibly as far back as 1976-02-20 (the date when Spain abandoned its possessions there). Gwillim Law
Thanks, I pushed the following patch to the experimental github version:
From 0d85102c8b55fcea3652c26a998c39f2292df972 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2013 23:42:15 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] Western Sahara uses Moroccan DST rules.
* africa (Africa/El_Aaiun): Assume it's been using Moroccan DST rules ever since Morocco took over. (Thanks to Gwillim Law.) * NEWS: Document this. --- NEWS | 5 +++++ africa | 22 ++++++++++++---------- 2 files changed, 17 insertions(+), 10 deletions(-) diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS index 9046ae6..f0b74e9 100644 --- a/NEWS +++ b/NEWS @@ -2,6 +2,11 @@ News for the tz database Unreleased, experimental changes + Changes affecting current and future time stamps: + + Western Sahara (Africa/El_Aaiun) uses Morocco's DST rules. + (Thanks to Gwillim Law.) + Changes affecting future time stamps: Acre and (we guess) western Amazonas will switch from UTC-4 to UTC-5 diff --git a/africa b/africa index e37c091..6641d4d 100644 --- a/africa +++ b/africa @@ -684,15 +684,6 @@ Zone Indian/Mayotte 3:00:56 - LMT 1911 Jul # Mamoutzou # http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Conseil+de+gouvernement+maroc+heure+ava... # </a> -# From Alex Krivenyshev (2008-05-09): -# Is Western Sahara (part which administrated by Morocco) going to follow -# Morocco DST changes? Any information? What about other part of -# Western Sahara - under administration of POLISARIO Front (also named -# SADR Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic)? - -# From Arthur David Olson (2008-05-09): -# XXX--guess that it is only Morocco for now; guess only 2008 for now. - # From Steffen Thorsen (2008-08-27): # Morocco will change the clocks back on the midnight between August 31 # and September 1. They originally planned to observe DST to near the end @@ -968,10 +959,21 @@ Zone Africa/Casablanca -0:30:20 - LMT 1913 Oct 26 0:00 Morocco WE%sT 1984 Mar 16 1:00 - CET 1986 0:00 Morocco WE%sT + # Western Sahara +# +# From Gwillim Law (2013-10-22): +# A correspondent who is usually well informed about time zone matters +# ... says that Western Sahara observes daylight saving time, just as +# Morocco does. +# +# From Paul Eggert (2013-10-23): +# Assume that this has been true since Western Sahara switched to GMT, +# since most of it was then controlled by Morocco. + Zone Africa/El_Aaiun -0:52:48 - LMT 1934 Jan -1:00 - WAT 1976 Apr 14 - 0:00 - WET + 0:00 Morocco WE%sT # Mozambique # Zone NAME GMTOFF RULES FORMAT [UNTIL] -- 1.8.3.1
participants (2)
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Gwillim Law -
Paul Eggert