Talk:Time zone/Archive 1

Please delete the "The Time around the World"
Please delet the "The Time around the World" link. Some times there are wrong. In Paris is a winter/summer time. The page doesn't know that. So the time on the page if one hour to early (Sorry for my bad English)

Brazil, summer = ?
So brazil adds an hour (daylight savings time) during whose summer? Dec/Jan summer, or the Northern hemisphere's summer? ~ender 2003-09-12 06:53:MST
 * Brazil adds an hour only in the southern portions of its time zones during the southern hemisphere summer--no DST in the equatorial regions. -- Joe Kress 06:06, 2004 Apr 20 (UTC)

So, uh, Spain has both UTC and UTC+1 time? At the same time, no less. How's that? ~Marnevel Is Argentina UTC-4 (text) or UTC-3 (map)? Paul Beardsell 00:56, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * Both of these points were corrected by someone. -- Joe Kress 06:06, 2004 Apr 20 (UTC)

Not all parts of Brazil incorporate summer time. For the most part, only the southern part of Brazil observes summer time. Some towns will however incorporate summer time if there is an energy shortage. But the closer you get to the equator and the further you get into the Amazon, the fewer the towns that use summer time. Additionally, the dates from when summer time starts to when it ends can change from year to year. Each year the government will determine when and if summer time will be used. Summer time can begin anywhere from the beginning of October to the beginning of November. Summer time can end anywhere from early February to early March. As for Argentenia, is UTC -3 hours and summer time (daylight saving time) is not currently used. ganteng

What about Universal Time Zones?
Someone smarter than me needs to incorporate elements from this article about the difference between Universal time zones and Local Civil time zones. And are things like "MSK - Moscow Time Zone" an internationally recognized designation? Saudi Arabia is in that zone, but I doubt they discuss Moscow much. Mackerm 22:30, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * The referenced article has several errors, the major being that there is no international treaty concerning time zones. These 15° 'International Time Zones' were proposed by Fleming, but were assigned these letters only after WWII (Fleming used a different letter system). They may be applicable somewhere, like on the high seas and over radio--they do not legally exist over land (I even have my doubts about the 'military' explanation). Rather, each country specifies its own time zones as it sees fit. Many (most?) time zone abbreviations are customary, not legal. For example, EST, EDT, etc. in the United States are customary only--only full words appear in the US time zone law: U.S. Law 15USC260-267 Joe Kress 06:06, 2004 Apr 20 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the U.S. law. It prompts another question which has been bothering me about this page: Some of the zones include the word "Zone" in their names, and some don't, e.g., "Bering Standard Time" vs. "Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time Zone". In examining the U.S. code, I never saw the words "Eastern Standard Time Zone". But since multiple countries on a longitude can pick their own names, it seems a losing battle anyway. Mackerm 07:15, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * The zone codes (such as "ZULU") are most assuredly of military origin - I used them all the time in the service. In communications the message is always dated by ZULU/UTC/GMT, and local time was often referred to when documenting events using the local zone code (i.e. "ROMEO" or "UNIFORM" for the U.S. West Coast). These zone codes are standardized throughout the U.S. military, and are part of NATO standardization.
 * The military may or may not have assigned letters (like Z, R, and U) to the time zones. But I am certain that their pronunciation (like ZULU, ROMEO, and UNIFORM) was NOT developed by any military &mdash; the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) developed it between 1947 and 1956. Military aircraft and radio have to use it because their countries are members of the ICAO (and the International Telecommunication Union ITU). NATO had nothing whatsoever to do with 'standardizing' the alphabet, because it does not appear in any NATO publication, and I have looked through many NATO publications trying to find it. If you know of such a NATO publication, please reveal its title. For a more detailed history see the NATO phonetic alphabet. Please sign your contribution in some way. &mdash; Joe Kress 08:15, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

GMT/UTC
This says that UTC is the official term. Official according to whom? In the UK the official term is GMT I think. Mark Richards 22:42, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * Actually, GMT is not exactly equal to UTC. You can get some information about that at e.g. http://sts.sunyit.edu/timetech/gmt-utc.html, or in the Greenwich Mean Time article. --Mormegil 11:02, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Åland Islands
Can anybody provide the time zone information for the Åland Islands? Sweden is UTC+1, Finland is UTC+2. So neither would be a safe bet, I think. Marian Steinbach, 17:15, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * The Åland Islands both belong to Finland and are in the Finnish time zone (UTC+2). The CIA map at the beginning of the article would show their time zone as brown (UTC+2), not green (UTC+1), if it were properly downloaded as a pdf file. A suitable source is Standard Time Zones of the World from the University of Texas library (806KB). A magnification of at least 800X is needed. Joe Kress 02:04, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)
 * During standard time, Åland is UTC + 2 hours. During daylight saving time (summer time), Åland is UTC +3 hours. It might be easier to find information about Åland Island if you do searches for the capital city of the region which is Mariehamn (sometimes spelled as Maarianhamina). ganteng

List of time zones and contained areas
I find the method of listing parts of countries (for example spain/Canary Islands) misleading. It is not clear (until you look through all other zones) that there is more than one entry. Someone unfamiliar with the topic could assume it's Spain and Canary Islands that are in UTC zone, not just the Canary Islands as part of Spain. Unfortunately I currently have no good idea on how to remedy this effectively. --Deelkar 14:21, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC) So, uh, Spain has both UTC and UTC+1 time? At the same time, no less. How's that? ~Marnevel Spain has two different hours because the Canary Islands are always one hour earlier -- they are too far off to the West to have the same time zone as mainland Spain.
 * I think one could use bolded or underlined to denote mainland Timezone entries, and italics for islands or other parts of the country with a different TZ.--Deelkar (talk) 01:04, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Underlining is obtained via underlining  . A significant problem with underlining is that it is easily confused with wikilinks. Such highlighting would not accomplish its purpose here if the main country still appears directly above the possession. Thus I recommend deleting the independent country directly above the possession and no longer indenting the possession. Anyone unfamiliar with the possession can simply follow its wikilink to find its ruling independent country. The independent country for those without wikilinks can be indicated in parentheses. This would work for isolated possessions, but if several possessions or states are in a single time zone the heading serves a useful purpose by collecting them, especially those possessions that are unfamiliar, like Russian oblasts. So I don't recommend deleting the heading for multiple possesions like states. &mdash; Joe Kress 07:48, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)

small remark: russian oblasts are not possessions, but administrative divisions, similar to US states, german Länder, or various provinces. But the argument remains valid, large countries lay in several timezones, but its divisions usually in one zone. Peter.

Sudan
What is the timezone of Sudan? UTC +2 or +3? The page of Sudan says +2, while the page of Timezone says +3?

Kazakhstan
The map produced by CIA partitioned Kazakhstan into +5 and +6, while ths page of Time zone states +4 to +6. (So is the Kazakhstan page). --chochopk
 * According to Oscar van Vlijmen, Kazakhstan "does no longer observe DST since 2005-03-15. The central time zone with UTC+5 merged with the western time zone with UTC+4 to form one UTC+5 zone, by the end of 2004." --Chochopk 08:16, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Local time
I recently added local time as a redirect to time zone, and subsequently bolded local time in the article, on the presumption that it is a common phrase used in reference to the time at a particular location, and is appropriate in many contexts to refer to such a time. (For example, the local time in Brisbane, Australia, is 10:23 PM.) I would just revert to my previous edit, but the calculating local time article leaves me a little unsatisfied (I considered redirecting local time to there, but time zone seemed closer to the usual meaning). Could anyone comment on the relationship between the above-mentioned articles? Ben Cairns 12:29, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC).
 * Calculating local time was apparently written by the same person who began the time zone article because of the similarity between them. Moreover, I see no need for calculating local time &mdash; subtracting one time zone from another seems to be so obvious as to not need explanation. I recommend merging calculating local time into time zone by simply adding one sentence about it to time zone, leaving calculating local time as a redirect itself. &mdash; Joe Kress 07:48, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Meanwhile, I've put local time back in with a minor edit. Ben Cairns 00:33, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC).
 * If you look at other pages, the only phrases bolded in the introduction are ones that are redirects to the same page. It is a formatting thing, according to the manual of style: If the subject of the article has more than one name, each new form of the name should be in bold on its first appearance. Unless the subject (i.e. time zones) is also named "local time" then it should not be bolded lest it be confused that it might be an alternate name for the article.-- 23:15, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hi :) The italicised version reads just fine except that local time is in fact a redirect (give it a try; I put it in myself before bolding it the first time).  Sorry, I should have been more clear in my edit summary when I changed it back.  I couldn't find a policy on bolding redirects that weren't synonyms, but I've reverted it back to bold because it doesn't look like a separate local time article is likely (or desirable) any time soon, and I believe it's a legitimate thing that people might want to look up.  Bolding it indicates that this is the article in which it is discussed.  I won't change it again, but there are my reasons.  Cheers, Ben Cairns 23:29, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC).
 * Sorry, completely my fault. It is just that it doesn't appear on "what links here" page. I guess there are over 500 pages that link to Time Zone. I did look over that list twice. My appolgies. -- 05:41, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Removing protection
An extensive discussion regarding the Time Cube edit war has been taking place at Talk:Greenwich Mean Time. I hope the issues have been resolved for now and am unprotecting this page. &mdash; Knowledge Seeker &#2470; 20:41, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

UTC vs GMT
The article implies that UTC and GMT are the same. I don't believe that this is the case. IIUC, GMT is defined as a number of days (rotations of the earth relative w.r.t. the sun) and UTC is defined as a number of SI seconds (oscillations of cesium atom, or some such thing). I think that the following link may explain the difference: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/astronomy/faq/part3/ Also, as someone has commented already, the GMT article explains the difference. -- Wmarkham 16:10, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, everywhere that the article implies that GMT and UTC are the same is appropriate. They are indeed synonyms as far as the BBC is concerned as the article states and as your own citation states: "BBC still uses this abbreviation [GMT] for patriotic reasons ;-) as a synonym for UTC" (and in Greenwich itself). The other place is in maritime usage where GMT is also a synonym for UTC. And of course, UTC did not exist before 1972 thus GMT is the only correct term to use in the history section. I've change the two true errors in the "List" explanation. &mdash; Joe Kress 06:42, May 4, 2005 (UTC)

You're right. Re-reading the article, it does make the difference clear. Thanks for looking at this, though. I'm sorry about my confusion. -- Wmarkham 02:36, 5 May 2005 (UTC) I have to say that just because the BBC is wrong doesn't mean we should propagate their error. GMT (=UT1) is mean solar time at Greenwich. By definition, UTC can differ from it by up to 0.9 seconds (or more, if/when leap seconds are abandoned, in future). You will find that most legislature makes the disinction. For example, most parts of Australia switched their official time zone definitions from relative to GMT to relative to UTC on 1st September this year (see Australian time zones). The time zone article makes a complete mishmash of the two, first of all incorrectly saying that UTC is the official basis of all time zones, worldwide, and then going on to partially explain the difference but then treat them as synonymous. 0.9 seconds is a looong time by modern precision standards. I'll get around to fixing this in the next couple of days, hopefully. --Russell E 14:12, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Done -- Russell E 04:50, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Ambiguous/clumsy sentence
The sentence "Multiple time zones were first proposed by Charles F. Dowd about 1863 for American railroads as a teacher to his students" is not at all clear to me. I'm no expert on time zones so don't know the history but the best reading of it I can discern is that it means that Professor Dowd's first suggestion of different timezones, to be used by the American railways, was made to his students. If this is so then perhaps a better formulation would be "Professor Charles F Dowd first proposed multiple timezones to his students, for use by the American railroads." Daduzi 11:06, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Splitting the zones into seperate articles
How about splitting the zones into seperate articles. there one could be more precise and it is an easy look up for others

!!please use template talk page!! thx Tobias Conradi (Talk) 22:51, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I do not support a split into 39 or so time zones because some would then be too small, but I do support a split into an introduction plus two lists, one for the western hemisphere and another for the eastern hemisphere (including UTC+0), to reduce the article's size to a more manageable level. &mdash; Joe Kress 20:29, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
 * How about just splitting the zones into a single separate article to start with? Suggested title: "List of time zones".  Where appropriate, they should also link to existing articles, such as "Australian time zones". Stephen.frede 05:13, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
 * support. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 19:22, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Since there seems to be no opposition, I will seperate the list from the article. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 11:22, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Chihuahua
Many text sources, including this wiki article, claims that Chihuahua is in UTC-7 (Mountain) time. However, many maps, such as the ones found on airline magazines and Rand McNally Road Atlas, indicates that Chihuahua is in UTC-6 (Central) time. Does anyone know why? --Chochopk 08:37, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks! All sources (CIA, NAO, Rand McNally) have Chihuahua in UTC-6. I am changing it. I can only speculate that it used to be in UTC-7. &mdash; Joe Kress 04:05, August 30, 2005 (UTC)
 * Chihuahua swapped from -6 to -7 in '98. See & . Have they changed back since then? –Hajor 13:58, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the update. After I posted the change, it occurred to me that they might have recently changed. All of the standard sources have a lag of several years in their response to changes, as much as 10 years. I'm changing it back with the date. &mdash; Joe Kress 14:23, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

GMT
hello what are other coutries that have time zones you know greenwhich mean time also what is going to be the new name for that
 * I don't understand your question, although I believe the present article has all the info you would need. The article already notes that time zones as a whole are not officially named (although letters are assigned to them). Even though countries do name the portions of time zones under their jurisdiction, those names do not extend beyond their borders. For example, it would be ludicrous for Brazil to accept the United States name of "Eastern standard time" for its westernmost time zone. &mdash; Joe Kress 20:09, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

Kuril Islands
I have doubts about Kuril Islands being in +12, could it be in +11? Can someone verify? --Chochopk 07:45, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks. It is indeed in +11 according to both the CIA and the NAO. I'm correcting it. &mdash; Joe Kress 07:02, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

Bouvet Island
Does Bouvet Island observe daylight saving time? --Chochopk 08:35, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Since Bouvet is uninhabited, I doubt that it has any DST, but I do not have access to my usual DST info. &mdash; Joe Kress 20:09, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

Midway Island
Thank you, Joe Kress, for clarifying my question. I believe this will be my last. I'm doing a more complete and correct map based on the CIA map. It's almost done. The only thing remained unclear is Midway Island. Wiki says Hawaii is -10, while Midway Atoll(staff only) is in -11. But looking at this map, there is a Kure Atoll northwest of Midway Atoll and a Pearl and Hermes Reef to southeast. I know these island are most likely uninhabited. But I just want my map (which will be uploaded) to be complete. Does anyone know if these 3 atolls fall into Hawaii's jurisdiction, or even better, their respective timezones. Thank you for all your help!! --Chochopk 06:22, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Kure Atoll and Pearl and Hermes Reef are explicitly included within the State of Hawaii (and within the City and County of Honolulu ) and thus are included within its time zone even though they are uninhabited, except for a Coast Guard facility on Kure or when Ham radio operators set up a DX station. However, Midway is explicitly excluded from the state of Hawaii, thus is not within its time zone. The map you cite is an old map which still has the Navy administering Midway &mdash; since May 20, 1996 it has been the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. Also see.
 * US time zone boundaries are defined in the Code of Federal Regulations, specifically 49CFR71. 49CFR71.12 states: "The seventh zone, the Hawaii-Aleutian standard time zone, includes the entire State of Hawaii and, in the State of Alaska, that part of the Aleutian Islands that is west of 169 degrees 30 minutes west longitude." Because Kure Atoll and Pearl and Hermes Reef are within the state of Hawaii, they are at -10. 49CFR71.13 states: "The eighth zone, the Samoa standard time zone, includes that part of the United States that is between 169 degrees 30 minutes west longitude and 172 degrees 30 minutes west longitude, but does not include any part of the States of Hawaii and Alaska." Because Midway is not in the state of Hawaii but is at 177°22'W, which is between 169°30'W and 172°30'W, Midway is in -11. Thus Kure is in -10 even though it is west of Midway in -11. &mdash; Joe Kress 20:09, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

Grand Canyon National Park
I dont think Grand Canyon National Park observes DST (Calton added that). I was there this summer (a bus tour from Las Vegas), and Grand Canyon National Park doesn't appear to observe DST. --Chochopk 07:12, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
 * These two pages (1, 2, scroll to the bottom) confirm that Grand Canyon National Park does NOT observe DST.
 * --Chochopk 21:12, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Problematic Countries/regions
As I was making a better map, these countries/regions gave me some trouble. Most of them are zone/DST changes in the past 10 years. I think we should actively monitor them (including each of their own wiki articles, or even the wiki articles of their sub entities)
 * French Polynesia
 * All the exceptions in Canada
 * Its about time Canadian time zone exceptions.
 * Canadian time zone maps

And I think it's silly to sometimes keep two entries for the same region (i.e. one from CIA, another from NAO). There is only one true timezone for each region. As we can see from the CIA map, it contains many errors. --Chochopk 07:48, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
 * United States
 * Hawaii & Midway Atoll
 * Indiana
 * Arizona
 * Navajo Nation
 * Mexico
 * Sonora
 * Chihuahua
 * Nicaragua
 * Uruguay
 * Tunisia
 * Libya
 * Sudan
 * Georgia
 * Russia
 * Astrakhan
 * Saratov
 * Ulyanovsk
 * Volgograd
 * Kirov
 * Tomsk
 * Kazakhstan (especially the western part)
 * Kyrgyzstan
 * Mongolia
 * That would be a lot of work. I doubt that individual articles would have time zone info. However, I'm sure that many are monitored by their residents, so a query to their talk page may produce results (many Wikipedia editors do not register and so cannot monitor their country's page). For recently changed zones, the best info would include the date or at least the year of the change. Before the Internet became popular, my best sources of time zone info were (and still are) the CIA map (revised periodically), the map of US embassies (I haven't seen a revised version in many years), and the time zone lists in the Air Almanac and the Nautical Almanac (updated annually). The Air Almanac may cease publication soon because of the advent of GPS satellites. The Nautical Almanac may or may not follow suit. The lists in both publications originate in Her Majesty's Nautical Almanac Office. I added the two versions of Russian time zones because I could not decide which source was more correct or up-to-date. I am not as willing as you seem to be to give up on the CIA map. &mdash; Joe Kress 18:37, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

DST Rule
Is there a wiki article about DST rules of each observing country? If not, we should start one. Timezone information w/o DST rules isn't really complete =) --Chochopk 07:48, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
 * More work! Because I am leary of the veracity of online sources, the best source of world-wide DST rules would be the "Legal Time" list in the Admiralty List of Radio Signals (vol. 2), also from Her Majesty's Nautical Almanac Office (updated annually, with changes also included in the weekly "Notice to Mariners"). Unfortunately, only large marine supply stores have it. I last consulted the copy in the NOAA Central Library in Washington, DC in 1999. – Joe Kress 18:37, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Time zone article naming format
I plan to write an article about the various time zone and daylight saving anomalies in Australia. I checked Category:Time zones to see what sort of naming format was used. The only comparable articles were Time in New Zealand, United States time zones, Hong Kong Time, Nepal Time. As a result my article would be called either Time in Australia, Australian time zones, or Australian Time - none of which were in line with the article name I was preferring - Time zones in Australia. Other articles such as China Standard Time would also be better suited as Time zones in China as they discuss the history of time zone changes in the country, not just the current zone time. More full articles, (such as Time zones in Canada) could be created from merging others, such as Newfoundland Standard Time Zone, Yukon Standard Time Zone, and so on. Is there a consensus to standarise the articles to a common naming scheme? -- Chuq 09:19, 14 October 2005 (UTC) I would tend to say that it be "Time in whereever", I feel that in most cases the timezones won't warrent a seperate article. So do Time in Australia. btw there is some existing material in the States and territories of Australia article. - SimonLyall 07:25, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I have written an Australian time zones entry. Actually, I wrote it after you posted your message above, but I only just found the message today. So, sorry about that. It would be a good place for info on daylight savings too, so go for it! I was planning on doing it myself eventually but it has a fairly long and potted history that I wasn't looking forward to researching! -- Russell E 04:56, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I should add, I haven't got around to putting in links to the entry or making redirects for Australian Eastern Standard Time etc yet (again, feel free) --Russell E 05:10, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
 * No problems at all - I've added some details to it, including a couple of maps, but there is still a lot more to go! -- Chuq 13:05, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Cull the links
This article has far too many external links, to sites of dubious use / commercial. I intend deleting a lot of them, using WP:EL as a guide. Thanks/wangi 11:08, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Now done, I've left only one of the generic "what's the time there" type sites. wangi 11:01, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Kiribati
The new World Almanac and Book of Facts shows Kiribati back to the east side of the International Date Line. I think they changed it just to capitalize off New Years Eve 1999-2000 and I assume they've changed it back. I don't have anything else to go off of, so I won't change it, but if somebody could find a place to check it, it should be updated. Rt66lt 19:25, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I doubt that. The CIA map in the article still shows Kiribati split by the Date Line, since they never acknowledged Kiribati's change in 1995. The other major source mentioned in the article, the map by Her Majesty's Nautical Almanac Office seems ambivalent: It shows Kiribati split, but nevertheless codes its two eastern island groups as M* (+13) and M&dagger; (+14), clearly indicating that the belong west of the Date Line. Her Majesty's Nautical Almanac Office is the source of all time zone info published by the United States Naval Observatory's Nautical Almanac Office, contained in both their Air Almanac (soon to cease publication) and their Nautical Almanac. I suspect that the World Almanac never showed the Kiribati split, or if they did, that they are now basing their info on the CIA map, disregarding the Nautical Almanac. — Joe Kress 05:45, 3 January 2006 (UTC)