[tz] tzdb data for North and Central America

[Paul Eggert]

On 1/13/20 8:15 AM, Jeffery Nichols wrote:
> I was also wondering whether anyone on your team has more data about
> what towns were part of America/Nipigon.

I got that data from my printed copy of the Shanks International Atlas. It 
contains hundreds of place names in Canada but does not sort them by time zone 
region. I just now looked in Shanks (4th edition) for place names beginning with 
"A" with the same time zone history as Nipigon (Shanks calls this Canada's 
region 35), and found the following:

Alfred
Algoma Mills
Algonquin
Almonte
Alvinston
Appleton
Apsley
Arden
Armstrong
Armstrong Station
Aroland
Attawapiskat
Auburn

The book has latitude and longitude for each of these entries. It would take 
some time to transcribe all this info (including B-Z) for all of Canada. Also, 
Shanks partitions the world into many more regions than tzdb does, because he 
doesn't have the 1970 cutoff that tzdb does. So he partitions Canada into 253 
regions and there could be other Shankian regions that share Nipigon's post-1970 
time zone history and would thus fall under America/Nipigon in tzdb.

With the above in mind, you could grab a copy of the book and get the data you 
need. Although the book is out of print, copies of the final (6th) edition can 
be found in libraries:

https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/76950459

https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1135266594

and used copies are for sale in various locations.

I misplaced my copy of the 6th edition during the 2011 astrologer lawsuit ruckus 
(it probably ended up with one of the attorneys I consulted), but I just now 
ordered a used copy so that I can more easily answer historical questions like 
yours in the future.