DST in west Amazonas and Fernando de Noronha

[Jesper Nørgaard]

Unfortunately, I couldn't load the pages http://pcdsh01.on.br/Fusbr.htm and
Fusbrhv.htm today. I don't know if they have been permanently removed or
renamed. Anyhow we should not make any changes to Fernando do Noronha
just based on these pages, so if no other sources can be found that Fernando
do Noronha was not on the same time as Pernambuco, it probably wasn't. Indeed it is also likely that I read them wrong if Paul Eggert doesn't read them that way.

>The above-listed web page mentions Atalaia do Norte, Boca do Maoco,
>Benjamin Constant, Eirunepé, Envira, and Ipixuna as being in west
>Amazonas.  I don't know offhand whether these are cities or districts.
>I can't access the Brazilian Census Bureau pages at
><http://www.ibge.gov.br/ibge/default.php> (my Netscape 4.76 Solaris
>browser rejects it with javascript errors)

I had no problems loading these pages with Internet Explorer 5, but
don't understand much portuguese. If "municípios" corresponds to the 
same thing as in spanish, these are municipality inhabitant counters, not strict city inhabitant counters. Indeed I am not completely sure if some names might only be a municipality and not also a city, but at least all the brazilian cities I know are mentioned so there is probably not much difference.

I could confirm that population counters on the two mentioned pages were equivalent, and also that Eirunepé seems to be the most populous of the West Amazonas cities, so it seems to be the best choice for a new "America/Eirunepé" West Amazonas time zone. Thanks for the link
to the brazilian population counters, they came in very useful for me.

Regards,

Jesper Nørgaard
Email: jnorgard at Prodigy.Net.mx	
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----------
From: 	Paul Eggert[SMTP:eggert at twinsun.com]
Sent: 	Lunes 4 de Diciembre de 2000 17.41
To: 	jnorgard at Prodigy.Net.mx
Cc: 	tz at elsie.nci.nih.gov; worldclock at timeanddate.com
Subject: 	Re: DST in west Amazonas and Fernando de Noronha

> Date: Fri, 03 Nov 2000 19:17:14 -0600
> From: <jnorgard at Prodigy.Net.mx>

> http://pcdsh01.on.br/Fusbr.htm
> http://pcdsh01.on.br/Fusbrhv.htm

Thanks for those pointers; I'll put them somewhere in my next proposed
patches.

> Since the TZ database for Brazil has been elaborated per state, we
> have an obligation to document the exceptions from that.

Yes, I think we should add a new entry, since as far as I can see,
west Amazonas observed DST in 1993/1994, whereas Acre did not; so it's
not the case that the two regions' clocks have been the same since 1970.

> Therefore I suggest to put a second entry in the TZ database for
> Amazonas as "America/Atalaia_do_Norte" or something like that.

The above-listed web page mentions Atalaia do Norte, Boca do Maoco,
Benjamin Constant, Eirunepé, Envira, and Ipixuna as being in west
Amazonas.  I don't know offhand whether these are cities or districts.
I can't access the Brazilian Census Bureau pages at
<http://www.ibge.gov.br/ibge/default.php> (my Netscape 4.76 Solaris
browser rejects it with javascript errors), but
<http://www.dcc.ufrj.br/~cristina/dadosam.html> gives the following
cities in Amazonas, in decreasing order of population:

 MANAUS                       1157357
 PARINTINS                      71574
 MANACAPURU                     65577
 ITACOATIARA                    64937
 TEFE                           62616
 COARI                          53327
 MANICORE                       37704
 MAUES                          36628
 TABATINGA                      32009
 LABREA                         27517
 SAO GABRIEL DA CACHOEIRA       26992
 IRANDUBA                       26612
 EIRUNEPE                       25776
 ...
 BENJAMIN CONSTANT              23633
 ...
 ENVIRA                         18192
 ...
 IPIXUNA                        11120
 ...
 ATALAIA DO NORTE               8108
 ...

So it appears that America/Eirunepe would be a better choice than
Atalaia do Norte.  However, I don't see a population entry for Boca do
Maoco, and I'm not sure what that is (perhaps a district?).


> According to these official pages, Fernando do Noronha has been on
> DST for some while back (e.g. before October 15 where the status
> probably changed).

I don't read the pages that way.  http://pcdsh01.on.br/Fusbr.htm and
http://pcdsh01.on.br/Fusbrhv.htm both list Fernando de Noronha as
being 2 hours behind UTC.  It is a little tricky, since the pages also
list the offset from Brasilia, and this offset does differ between
winter and summer.