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Dear Arthur Olson and Paul Eggert,<BR>
<BR>
Could you give me some feedback please?<BR>
<BR>
在 2011-06-29三的 23:59 +0800，An Yang写道：<BR>
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Dear Arthur,<BR>
<BR>
Thanks a lot.<BR>
<BR>
At first, let me show you some data:<BR>
<BR>
Population of Beijing in 2011 is 22,634,722, data from <A HREF="http://www.trueknowledge.com/q/population_of_beijing_in_2011">http://www.trueknowledge.com/q/population_of_beijing_in_2011</A><BR>
And population of Shanghai in 2011 is 22,447,529, data from <A HREF="http://www.trueknowledge.com/q/population_of_shanghai_in_2011">http://www.trueknowledge.com/q/population_of_shanghai_in_2011</A><BR>
<BR>
And of cause, you can check the population of Beijing and Shanghai in 1996, Beijing is 2,069,722, and Shanghai is 1,188,721.<BR>
<BR>
If your data source is <A HREF="http://www.world-gazetteer.com/wg.php?x=1263073253&men=gcis&lng=en&des=gamelan&geo=-54&srt=npan&col=abcdefghinoq&msz=1500&pt=c&va=&srt=2npan">http://www.world-gazetteer.com/wg.php?x=1263073253&men=gcis&lng=en&des=gamelan&geo=-54&srt=npan&col=abcdefghinoq&msz=1500&pt=c&va=&srt=2npan</A><BR>
and <A HREF="http://www.citypopulation.de/world/Agglomerations.html">http://www.citypopulation.de/world/Agglomerations.html</A><BR>
What I can say, the data is wrong absolutely.<BR>
<BR>
The following is the data from the China Gov (Chinese only):<BR>
<A HREF="http://www.shanghai.gov.cn/shanghai/node2314/node2319/node12344/u26ai25463.html">http://www.shanghai.gov.cn/shanghai/node2314/node2319/node12344/u26ai25463.html</A><BR>
<A HREF="http://www.bjstats.gov.cn/rkpc_6/pcsj/201105/t20110506_201580.htm">http://www.bjstats.gov.cn/rkpc_6/pcsj/201105/t20110506_201580.htm</A><BR>
<BR>
All of these data is different, what should we trust?<BR>
Let me try to explain it, frankly say, it's difficult to count the exact population of a city which have more than 20,000,000, especially in China.<BR>
The population data from government, it just include the people who have the locale ID ( hukou ), do not include people without locale ID (hukou).<BR>
<BR>
So maybe 20-30% people lost, I think the data from <A HREF="http://www.trueknowledge.com">http://www.trueknowledge.com</A> is more accurate, which reflect the real number of people who live in the city.<BR>
<BR>
My conclusion is both Beijing and Shanghai are big city in China, and have almost the similar populations.<BR>
<BR>
According to the rule:<BR>
Among locations with similar populations, pick the best-known location, e.g. prefer `Rome' to `Milan'.<BR>
<BR>
I think the best-known location is Beijing, no matter from Chinese view or from the foreigner's view.<BR>
<BR>
I have read all the messages about Beijing Time in ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzarchive.gz, and notice that all the voice from China is the same, Beijing should represent China.<BR>
<BR>
So trust the people who live there and use Beijing time everyday maybe the best choice. <BR>
<BR>
<BR>
Bests, <BR>
<BR>
An Yang<BR>
<BR>
在 2011-06-29三的 06:30 -0400，Arthur Olson写道：<BR>
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I've added you to the time zone mailing list.<BR>
<BR>
You may want to check out the old mailing list archives in...<BR>
<A HREF="ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzarchive.gz">ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzarchive.gz</A><BR>
...for past discussions of the Shanghai/Beijing matter (it does come up every few years).<BR>
<BR>
--ado<BR>
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