TZ time zone shapefile

[Jesper Norgaard Welen]

Eric Muller wrote:
 
"To my knowledge, there is not yet a publicly available shapefile that
covers all the tz timezones, but there are shapefiles that cover "modern"
time zones."

World Time Explorer (a Windows program that I made) includes a shapefile
that is including all tz timezones. Additionally, it contains a DBF file for
the shapefile that both represents the names of the shapes, but also
connects each shape to WTE's own timezones. Note that often a given timezone
spans many little pieces since the land surface is split into many islands.
The only problem of mapping the tz timezones to the WTE timezones is just
the naming convention, for instance the tz timezone Europe/Uzhgorod is in
WTE "Ukraine, Uzhgorod". In most cases this should be straightforward, but
some might need a little bit of "digging". Timezones are present in the
city.txt file with an "@" in front, and represents the subsequent cities not
having an "@" in front.
 
You can use WTE to calculate the map colors for any given time since 1850
till today, where each color represents a given GMT offset. There is an
example of how this looks like here: HYPERLINK
"http://www.worldtimeexplorer.com/WorldMapBig.gif"http://www.worldtimeexplor
er.com/WorldMapBig.gif but also note that calculating the colors is only
activated when you have a full (paid) license.
 
On the other hand I consider the shapefile to be publicly available,
although I have not supplied it with a proper GNU free license or similar
license.
 
P.S:  I use "timezone" instead of "time zone" deliberately, although I
perhaps agree that "time zone" is better English grammar. One reason is that
the Danish language would always put together the words to a single word
with a new independent meaning, in Danish "time zone" is "tidszone". But
also it is clear that a Google search for "time zone" gives a whole lot of
hits for articles referring to time and another pile of hits referring to
zone, which really have nothing to do with "time zone". Just my 2 cents.
 
Regards,
- Jesper Nørgaard Welen
 
Jesper Nørgaard Welen
Email: jnorgard at Prodigy.Net.mx 
Project Leader (Líder de Proyecto) Software
CIMMYT  -  Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo
Dirección: CIMMYT Int. c/o Jesper Nørgaard
Km. 45, Carretera México-Veracruz
El Batán
Texcoco, Edo. de México
CP 56130   MEXICO
Tel.:   +52 (55) 58-04-20-04  ext. 1374
Fax:    +52 (55) 58-04-75-58
Tel. Casa:   53-10-05-95  ó  53-10-97-78
Download the shareware program World Time Explorer, I made:
HYPERLINK
"http://www.worldtimeexplorer.com/index.html"http://www.worldtimeexplorer.co
m/index.html

 

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18:55
 
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