<br><br>On Thursday, August 29, 2013, Lester Caine wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Zefram wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
In the above, I'm using the term "country" as a synonym for "ISO 3166<br>
region", by which I mean a region to which ISO 3166 assigns a regular<br>
alpha-2 code. I think this is uncontroversial ground on this list,<br>
but worth explicating in this context: the biggest political question<br>
we're ducking is what constitutes a country.<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Looking at the genealogical data, country boundaries change over time, so we can not rely on the current map of the world if the job is to be done correctly. No doubt in the future some areas will move from one time zone to another due to 'political' changes.<br>
</blockquote><div><br></div><div>Setting aside the current controversy, this kind of situation is already handled quite well: if after 1970, a chunk of territory switches from a country with one history of time zone rules to a another country with a different history, that by necessity forks that chunk of territory into a new time zone. If territory is exchanged between countri<span></span>es with identical time zone histories, no new zone need be forked. </div>
<br><br>-- <br>Scott Atwood<br><br><br>