[tz] Proposal to change Macquarie Island to be Australian territory

[Tim Thornton]

Regarding in which region an island lies, a good approach is probably to
refer to the IHO (International Hydrographic Organisation) publication S-23
on the limits of oceans and seas. Unfortunately the current (1952) edition
removed the Antarctic or Southern Ocean as a separate region as it was
deemed to be an arbitrary delineation with no clear northern geographical
boundary. However work was done on a 4th Edition in 2000 which reinstated
the Southern Ocean and set the limits as 60 degrees South. This edition
would have been published and in force now, apart from a reservation from
Argentina.

So I would propose that any TZ data south of 60S, which means that Macquarie
Island does not fall in to Antarctica.

Tim



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-----Original Message-----
From: tz-bounces at iana.org [mailto:tz-bounces at iana.org] On Behalf Of Russ
Allbery
Sent: 18 April 2013 01:18
To: tz at iana.org
Subject: Re: [tz] Proposal to change Macquarie Island to be Australian
territory

"David Grosz" <david at DLG.com.au> writes:

> I'm not sure if this is what the issue is but politically, Macquarie 
> Island is part of Tasmania and as such, I would have thought it should 
> be included under Australia.

Organization into the top-level structure is by continent or oceanic region,
not by political entity.  Otherwise, it would be America/Honolulu, not
Pacific/Honolulu.  That's why Paul's reply pointed out the ambiguity of
geographic classification, rather than focusing on the political
classification.

Classifying by political entity is a fast way to get us into trouble in more
politically contentious places.  Consider Atlantic/Stanley, for example.

Australia is somewhat confusing in that context since it's both a political
entity and a continent.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra at stanford.edu)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>