FW: quality of historical zone information

[Paul Eggert]

> From: Alois Treindl [mailto:alois at astro.ch]
> Sent: Sunday, January 28, 2001 11:11 AM
> 
> This is also why Thomas Shanks had created the International and
> American atlas. Tom is long gone from ACS, and they no longer maintain
> their database properly.

That's too bad.  Their database is the best resource I know of for this
area.

> Defining more zones will not be enough.  it must be possible to
> associate every populated place with the right zone.

Yes.  We could have a geographical polygon associated with each zone.
Ideally there should be justification for why the polygon is the way
it is.

The best free work that I know of in this area the time zone map
information published by Manifold.net.  The USGS also has some data
for the US.  I plan to add links for this in my next proposed tz
patch.  However, these maps cover only current data; they do not
address historical issues.  For more, please see:

http://www.manifold.net/download/freemaps.html
http://software.geocomm.com/data/intl_timezones.html
http://www.nationalatlas.gov/timeznm.html

> I would like to see the tz-database become THE reference source for
> this kind of information, but it is a long path of work. I might be able
> to contribute to this efffort, particularily after my scheduled retirement
> in mid-2002.

That's good news.

> I would like to know whether there are any plans of a systematic nature
> to improve the quality of historical work in the TZ database.

Not yet, but we'd love to have your help.