Time Zone Localizations

[Infoman]

Clive,

Thanks very much. My apologies and I stand to be corrected.

The information that I sent was based on that provided by the UN people in
their Statistical Division. It is now obvious that whomever, I spoke to and
corresponded with three years ago, is not as precise as the "lord of time".

Once again thanks for the correction - Jake Knoppers


-----Original Message-----
From: Clive D.W. Feather [mailto:clive at demon.net]
Sent: June 11, 2004 8:49 AM
To: Infoman
Cc: Mark Davis; Guy Harris; tz at lecserver.nci.nih.gov
Subject: Re: Time Zone Localizations


Infoman said:
> Actually the numbers stay the same, Russia retains the number for the
Soviet
> Union and united Germany retained the number for West-Germany.
[...]
> The same happened re Ethiopia (& Eritrea), Yugoslavia, etc.

Not so.

On 1990-10-30:

    DD DDR 278    withdrawn (3166-3 entry DDDE)
    DE DEU 280    replaced
    DE DEU 276    added

  New numeric code for the same political entity (Federal Germany).

On 1992-06-15:

    SU SUN 810    withdrawn (3166-3 entry SUHH)
    RU RUS 643    added (and others, e.g. KZ KAZ 398)

  New numeric code because Russia was not the USSR.

On 1990-08-14:

    YD YMD 720    withdrawn (3166-3 entry YDYE)
    YE YEM 886    replaced
    YE YEM 887    added

  Merged Yemen got a new number.

On 1993-07-22:

    PA PAN 590    replaced
    PA PAN 591    added

  Panama got a new number when it absorbed the Canal Zone (which didn't
  have one).

On 1993-07-16:

    ET ETH 230    replaced
    ET ETH 231    added
    ER ERI 232    added

  Ethiopia got a new number when Eritrea split off.

On 1993-07-28:

    YU YUG 890    replaced
    YU YUG 891    added

  Yugoslavia got a new number to recognise that it was really just Serbia
  and Montenegro (and this number transferred to the new CS SCG code).

> The
> perspective here is that of a jurisdictional nature. Even though the
> physical territory may change, the jurisdictional entity remains.

And the numeric code changes - see above.

> The 3 digit numeric code and the 3-alpha code belong to are under the
> control of the UN and maintained by the UN Statistical system. The the
> official long and short names of each country are under the control of
each
> country. However changes in names or names for "new" countries are vetted
by
> the UN. Normally proposed changes do go through "automatically". Only
rarely
> does a UN member object (e.g. as is the current case with "Macedonia).
>
> The ISO 3166-1 standard takes this UN originated information and then
> adds/manages the 2-alpha codes.

If you look at the ISO3166MA web site, you'll see that only the numeric
codes come from the UN Statistics Division.

I can't find my copy of 3166, but I believe you'll find this distinction
between alpha and numeric codes in it.

I believe you'll also find there is a 4-digit code as well, which is
derived from the two letter code by the calculation 1070+30a+b, where a
represents the first letter and b the second letter (A=1, B=2, etc.).
In this code, AF is 1106 and GB is 1282.

--
Clive D.W. Feather  | Work:  <clive at demon.net>   | Tel:    +44 20 8495 6138
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