[tz] Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time

Paul Eggert eggert at cs.ucla.edu
Fri Apr 17 15:48:09 UTC 2015


Hank W. wrote:
> I happened to notice that the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, Title 49,
> Subtitle A, Part 71, Section 71.12 states "...the Hawaii-Aleutian standard
> time zone, includes the entire State of Hawaii and, in the State of Alaska,
> that part of the Aleutian Islands that is west of 169 degrees 30 minutes
> west longitude."
>
> The America/Adak Zone data include this change, but the Pacific/Honolulu
> Zone data do not.

Sorry, I don't understand what the phrase "this change" refers to, but I suppose 
you're thinking that Hawaii's time zone abbreviation should change?  If so, that 
federal regulation no doubt comes from 15 U.S. Code §263 
<https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/263>, which designates the time zone 
as "Hawaii-Aleutian standard time".  Hawaii had already observing this time zone 
well before this federal name was introduced in 1983, and popular usage still 
seems to prefer "Hawaii Standard Time" and/or "HST" to designate it, even in 
government web sites.  For example, see:

http://help.waterdata.usgs.gov/code/tz_query
https://www.fema.gov/disaster/1664/news
http://oimt.hawaii.gov/procurement/
http://labor.hawaii.gov/ui/faq/

We prefer popular to "official" English-language usage, when it can be 
determined, so "HST" seems to be the way to go for Hawaii's time even if the 
official federal full name for the time zone includes an "-Aleutian".



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