The guidelines in theory.html were recently updated to call greater attention to the fact that it is not a goal to give every place on Earth a tz identifier that refers to a nearby location:
| Here are the general guidelines used for choosing timezone names, in | decreasing order of importance: | ... | If all clocks in a region have agreed since 1970, give them just one | name even if some of the clocks disagreed before 1970, or reside in | different countries or in notable or faraway locations. Otherwise | these tables would become annoyingly large. For example, do not create | a name Indian/Crozet as a near-duplicate or alias of Asia/Dubai merely | because they are different countries or territories, or their clocks | disagreed before 1970, or the Crozet Islands are notable in their own | right, or the Crozet Islands are not adjacent to other locations that | use Asia/Dubai. Note that this is listed sixth out of 17 guidelines “in decreasing order of importance.” -- Doug Ewell, CC, ALB | Lakewood, CO, US | ewellic.org From: Jonathan Abdiel Gonzalez Valdebenito via tz <tz@iana.org> Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2025 9:56 To: Aldrin Martoq Ahumada <aldrin.mar...@gmail.com> Cc: Time Zone Mailing List <tz@iana.org> Subject: [tz] Re: [PATCH] No need for America/Coyhaique in zonenow.tab Hello, I totally agree with Aldrin, when you travel, you look for the timezones by the region/place you are, for sure no one will look for Sao Paolo in Coyhaique, specially because one is close to Antártida and the other one close to the Ecuador line. Regards, On Sun, Mar 23, 2025, 16:51 Aldrin Martoq Ahumada via tz <mailto:tz@iana.org> wrote: Hi Paul, Can we keep the newly created America/Coyhaique? IMHO it makes more sense to choose a timezone close to your location rather than one more than 4000 km far away (the same length of continental Chile), even if it works the same. Besides, I’m pretty sure there will be more switches in the future, knowing our governments so far… Best regards, Aldrin.
