Acre (Brazil) representation

[Jesper Nørgaard]

In the tz database we have had the Acre state of Brazil represented by the zone America/Porto_Acre for a long time back, however, this contradicts the general rule that the most populous city should be chosen for a given country, state, region, island etc., which also was used when determining that the city Atalaia do Norte should not be used as representative for East Amazonas, but instead the most populous city Eirunepé.

According to the page
http://www.ibge.gov.br/ibge/estatistica/populacao/contagem/accont96.shtm
which mentions 22 cities of Acre, the most populous is by far Rio Branco, with 228,857 inhabitants. The argument in the tz database is that Rio Branco could not be used because there is a (ed: relatively unknown) Rio Branco in Uruguay. The validity of this argument seems a bit doubtful to me. It would be like saying "We can't make a time zone Europe/Paris because there is a Paris in Tennessee; let's make it Europe/Lyon". Who would be looking for Lyon?

There is another reason for not choosing Rio Branco though, the state Roraima was previously called state Rio Branco.

Supposing that Rio Branco is not chosen, then the next-most populated city of Acre is Cruzeiro do Sul with 56,705 inhabitants, or if you don't like underscores in abundance as in America/Cruzeiro_do_Sul, there would be Tarauacá as in America/Tarauaca which has 23,715 inhabitants. Porto Acre really comes long down the list with only 8,326 inhabitants.

In conclusion I recommend to change America/Porto_Acre to America/Rio_Branco as first option, America/Cruzeiro_do_Sul as second option and America/Tarauaca as third option.

Regards,
Jesper Nørgaard
Email: jnorgard at Prodigy.Net.mx	
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