Multiple time zones in Mongolia

Paul Eggert eggert at twinsun.com
Mon Dec 13 17:44:30 UTC 1999


   From: "Law, Gwil Jr. " <Gwil_Law at Bridge-Point.com>
   Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1999 09:48:53 -0500

   Following the published criteria, Dund-Us is the top choice, with
   Ulaangom a close second.  Dund-Us is more centrally located in the zone,
   which might give it more of an edge.

Thanks very much for your analysis.  Dund-Us's multiple names troubles
me.  (I have a sneaking suspicion that some of them are just nicknames
like ``The Big Apple''.:-) However, as you say, Dund-Us is more
centrally located, and it is easier to spell, so perhaps we should go
with Dund-Us.

I'm still planning to comment out Shanks's claim that there was a
third time zone in the east, but in the comment I'll change its
canonical representative from Baruun-Urt to Choibalsan, as the latter
seems by far the largest town in the purported zone.  Unfortunately
its spelling is also problematic: Choybalsan? Qoibalsan? Something
with umlauts over it?

Graham Taylor explains that the naming problem

	has arisen from the confusing system of giving the soum
	township a different name to the soum area....

	It was once said that the hardest things to find in Mongolia
	were accurate information and coconut milk....

	[There are] often multiple levels of conflicting information
	from the same official source.

	-- <http://www.lonelyplanet.com/upgrades/up-mon.htm>

I'm used to this problem with time zone information, but it is amusing
to see it with regard to place names.



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