[tz] Dropping coordinates from zone1970.tab?

[Aurelien Jarno]

On 2021-09-29 13:35, Guy Harris wrote:
> On Sep 29, 2021, at 1:22 PM, Aurelien Jarno via tz <tz at iana.org> wrote:
> 
> > The zone1970.tab says: "This table is intended as an aid for users, to
> > help them select timezones appropriate for their practical needs". I
> > have the impression that the coordinates in that table do not anymore
> > aid users to select appropriate timezones,
> 
> Did they ever do so?  The coordinates for the tzdb region in which I live point to a random location on 1st street in Los Angeles, which is over 400 km from where I live, and is far from where the vast majority of people in the America/Los_Angeles region live.  (It's not all that near where many people in the *Los Angeles metropolitan area* live.)

If you consider a world map to select the timezone, with each timezone
represented by a circle from the coordinates in the zone1970.tab, you
will find the America/Los_Angeles close to where you live, and it would
be natural to select it. We are talking of 400km at the scale of a world
map.

In the example I gave, we are talking about more than 10000 km from
South to North, roughly half of the map. I am not sure users will have
the idea to look so far for their timezone.

-- 
Aurelien Jarno                          GPG: 4096R/1DDD8C9B
aurelien at aurel32.net                 http://www.aurel32.net