Chamorro Standard Time (new US time zone)

[John Cowan]

INFOMAN Inc. wrote:

 > Consequently, we need to be able to reference, unambiguously, the set of
 > official time zones internationally as well as within a particular
 > jurisdiction (e.g. USA).
 >
 > In this context my initial questions are:
 >
 > 1. Is there an "official list" of all the names or labels used to 
designate
 > time zones

No.  There cannot be, see below.

 > 2. And their mapping to "+" or "-"  offsets of Greenwich mean time?

Unfortunately, the mapping is neither 1-1 nor language independent.
For example, EST means UTC-0500 in the U.S., but UTC+1100 in Australia.
Furthermore, the 3-letter zones used in TZ software are English-based,
and often have nothing to do with the zone names used in
non-English-speaking countries.  Furthermore, many countries probably
don't have official abbreviations, especially when they have only
one time zone (the norm).

All that is why TZ uses the continent/country form to specify zones.

-- 
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