Africa - data error

[Jamie]

Paul,

The International Atlas says that the city and country have observed a time zone of -1 (Central Europe Time) since 1960.  Before that the time zone was 0 (UT).
 
The Wikipedia article on Niamey says that the time zone name is WAT = UTC+1.  The article on Switzerland says that its time zone name is CET = UTC+1.
 
The PC Atlas uses WAT for UTC-1, which was in effect in Niger for 1912 to 1934. (Pottenger)
 
AstrolDeluxe displays West Central Africa Time (WCAT) = -1.  Perhaps a different term (I propose WCAT), would straighten out the ambiguity and provide a more appropriate term for this obsolete zone.  

There is a reference here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd796927.aspx

Jamie

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Eggert [mailto:eggert at cs.ucla.edu] 
Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2010 12:13 PM
To: tz at lecserver.nci.nih.gov
Cc: Jamie
Subject: Re: Africa - data error

On 08/22/2010 07:58 AM, Jamie wrote:
> I believe I have the latest - please check Africa file - it appears to have
> a minus sign in front of the Feb 1934 date.
>
> Zone	Africa/Niamey	 0:08:28 -	LMT	1912
> 			-1:00	-	WAT	1934 Feb 26

That minus sign is also in our source, namely Shanks & Pottenger.
Quite possibly it's a typo (it wouldn't be the first time), but
it'd be nice to have a source for any fix.