Xinjiang

[Robert Elz]

    Date:        Mon, 7 Dec 2009 22:45:33 +0600
    From:        Luther Ma <ma.lude.xj at gmail.com>
    Message-ID:  <C447F652-CB6B-4518-B009-83898D10C41A at gmail.com>

  | One thing I wonder about is exactly what "zone" refers to. The reason  
  | I ask is that Han living in Xinjiang would not say that they are in  
  | the Urumqi (or Wulumuqi) zone as far as time is concerned. Does it  
  | refer instead an area and population center first and then to a time  
  | zone second?

It is (except in a few rare cases that cause problems, mostly in South
America I think) the Anglophile name of the biggest population centre
(city or town) within the same country, that has a particular wallclock
time (and history).

Timezones themselves tend not to actually have names in many places,
it is just "the time" - but cities and towns generally always have names,
and it is very rare for a single city or time to have two different
timezones (the ones under discussion being one odd case.)

kre