[tz] [PROPOSED] Replace Pacific/Enderbury with Pacific/Kanton

Fri May 28 18:26:03 UTC 2021

When I added Pacific/Enderbury in 1993, I thought it was the
most-populous location in its timezone.  I was wrong - it has been
uninhabited since 1942.  I discovered my mistake this week when
doing the recent timezone-coalescing changes.  It shouldn’t be
surprising that this problem has not been reported, as only two
dozen people live in the timezone, they’re rotated in and out, and
they likely don’t have a good Internet connection.  Leaving the
name alone wouldn’t work because Pacific/Enderbury should be at
-00 now, our convention for uninhabited locations.  So, replace
the name with Pacific/Kanton.  By strange coincidence, Kanton has
been in the news recently, for reasons similar to why Enderbury
was in the news in the 1930s; see:
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40471/china-wants-to-revive-a-strategically-located-military-airfield-deep-in-pacific-report
* NEWS: Mention this.
* australasia, zone.tab, zone1970.tab (Pacific/Kanton):
New zone, replacing ...
* backward (Pacific/Enderbury): New backward-compatibility link
* backzone: Copy of old data, with fixes for uninhabited times,
which includes the current time.
---
 NEWS         | 13 +++++++++++--
 australasia  | 19 ++++++++++++++++++-
 backward     |  1 +
 backzone     | 12 ++++++++++++
 zone.tab     |  2 +-
 zone1970.tab |  2 +-
 6 files changed, 44 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 04c45e9..53890a7 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -2,6 +2,13 @@ News for the tz database
 
 Unreleased, experimental changes
 
+  Changes to zone name
+
+    Rename Pacific/Enderbury to Pacific/Kanton.  When we added
+    Enderbury in 1993, we did not know that it is uninhabited and that
+    Kanton (population two dozen) is the only inhabited location in
+    that timezone.  The old name is now a backward-compatility link.
+
   Changes to past timestamps
 
     Correct many pre-1993 transitions, fixing entries originally
@@ -14,11 +21,13 @@ Unreleased, experimental changes
       - Guyana: corrected LMT for Georgetown; the introduction of
 	standard time in 1911, not 1915; and corrections to 1975 and
 	1992 transitions
+      - Kanton: uninhabited before 1937-08-31
       - Niue: observed -11:20 in 1951-1978
       - Portugal: DST was observed in 1950
       - Tonga: adopted standard time in 1945 not 1901, and moved from
 	+12:20 to +13 in 1961 not 1941
     Additional fixes to entries in the 'backzone' file include:
+      - Enderbury: inhabited only 1860/1885 and 1938-03-06/1942-02-09
       - The Gambia: 1933 and 1942 transitions
       - Malawi: several 1911 through 1925 transitions
       - Sierra Leone: several 1913 through 1941 transitions, and DST
@@ -955,8 +964,8 @@ Release 2018d - 2018-03-22 07:05:46 -0700
     Institute in Montevideo.
     (Thanks to Jeremie Bonjour, Tim Parenti, and Michael Deckers.)
 
-    Enderbury and Kiritimati skipped New Year's Eve 1994, not
-    New Year's Day 1995.  (Thanks to Kerry Shetline.)
+    East Kiribati skipped New Year's Eve 1994, not New Year's Day 1995.
+    (Thanks to Kerry Shetline.)
 
     Fix the 1912-01-01 transition for Portugal and its colonies.
     This transition was at 00:00 according to the new UT offset, not
diff --git a/australasia b/australasia
index 8e952ad..5cbc0c8 100644
--- a/australasia
+++ b/australasia
@@ -457,7 +457,7 @@ Zone	Pacific/Guam	-14:21:00 -	LMT	1844 Dec 31
 # Zone	NAME		STDOFF	RULES	FORMAT	[UNTIL]
 Zone Pacific/Tarawa	 11:32:04 -	LMT	1901 # Bairiki
 			 12:00	-	+12
-Zone Pacific/Enderbury	-11:24:20 -	LMT	1901
+Zone Pacific/Kanton	  0	-	-00	1937 Aug 31
 			-12:00	-	-12	1979 Oct
 			-11:00	-	-11	1994 Dec 31
 			 13:00	-	+13
@@ -1735,6 +1735,23 @@ Zone	Pacific/Efate	11:13:16 -	LMT	1912 Jan 13 # Vila
 # One source for this is page 202 of: Bartky IR. One Time Fits All:
 # The Campaigns for Global Uniformity (2007).
 
+# Kanton
+
+# From Paul Eggert (2021-05-27):
+# Kiribati's +13 timezone is represented by Kanton, its only populated
+# island.  (It was formerly spelled "Canton", but Gilbertese lacks "C".)
+# Kanton was settled on 1937-08-31 by two British radio operators
+# <https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1937v02/d94>;
+# Americans came the next year and built an airfield, partly to
+# establish airline service and perhaps partly anticipating the
+# next war.  Aside from the war, the airfield was used by commercial
+# airlines until long-range jets became standard; although currently
+# for emergency use only, China says it is considering rebuilding the
+# airfield for high-end niche tourism.  Kanton has about two dozen
+# people, caretakers who rotate in from the rest of Kiribati in 2-5
+# year shifts, and who use some of the leftover structures
+# <http://pipa.neaq.org/2012/06/images-of-kanton-island.html>.
+
 # Kwajalein
 
 # From an AP article (1993-08-22):
diff --git a/backward b/backward
index 9e22754..0fec5e4 100644
--- a/backward
+++ b/backward
@@ -208,6 +208,7 @@ Link	Pacific/Chatham		NZ-CHAT
 Link	America/Denver		Navajo
 Link	Asia/Shanghai		PRC
 Link	Pacific/Port_Moresby	Pacific/Chuuk
+Link	Pacific/Kanton		Pacific/Enderbury
 Link	Pacific/Tarawa		Pacific/Funafuti
 Link	Pacific/Honolulu	Pacific/Johnston
 Link	Pacific/Tarawa		Pacific/Majuro
diff --git a/backzone b/backzone
index f5b20fa..4d69a3f 100644
--- a/backzone
+++ b/backzone
@@ -1566,6 +1566,18 @@ Zone Pacific/Chuuk	-13:52:52 -	LMT	1844 Dec 31
 Link Pacific/Chuuk Pacific/Truk
 Link Pacific/Chuuk Pacific/Yap
 
+# Phoenix Islands, Kiribati
+# From Paul Eggert (2021-05-27):
+# Enderbury was inhabited 1860/1880s to mine guano, and 1938-03-06/1942-02-09
+# for aviation (ostensibly commercial, but military uses foreseen).
+# The 19th-century dates are approximate.  See Pacific/Kanton for
+# the currently-inhabited representative for this timezone.
+Zone Pacific/Enderbury	0	-	-00	1860
+			-11:24:20 -	LMT	1885
+			0	-	-00	1938 Mar  6
+			-12:00	-	-12	1942 Feb  9
+			0	-	-00
+
 # Tuvalu
 Zone Pacific/Funafuti	11:56:52 -	LMT	1901
 			12:00	-	+12
diff --git a/zone.tab b/zone.tab
index cbf4b91..e2062cf 100644
--- a/zone.tab
+++ b/zone.tab
@@ -232,7 +232,7 @@ KE	-0117+03649	Africa/Nairobi
 KG	+4254+07436	Asia/Bishkek
 KH	+1133+10455	Asia/Bangkok
 KI	+0125+17300	Pacific/Tarawa	Gilbert Islands
-KI	-0308-17105	Pacific/Enderbury	Phoenix Islands
+KI	-0247-17143	Pacific/Kanton	Phoenix Islands
 KI	+0152-15720	Pacific/Kiritimati	Line Islands
 KM	-1141+04316	Africa/Nairobi
 KN	+1718-06243	America/Puerto_Rico
diff --git a/zone1970.tab b/zone1970.tab
index a02d94d..6b9d288 100644
--- a/zone1970.tab
+++ b/zone1970.tab
@@ -188,7 +188,7 @@ JP	+353916+1394441	Asia/Tokyo
 KE,DJ,ER,ET,KM,MG,SO,TZ,UG,YT	-0117+03649	Africa/Nairobi
 KG	+4254+07436	Asia/Bishkek
 KI,MH,TV,UM,WF	+0125+17300	Pacific/Tarawa	Gilberts, Marshalls, Tuvalu, Wallis & Futuna, Wake
-KI	-0308-17105	Pacific/Enderbury	Phoenix Islands
+KI	-0247-17143	Pacific/Kanton	Phoenix Islands
 KI	+0152-15720	Pacific/Kiritimati	Line Islands
 KP	+3901+12545	Asia/Pyongyang
 KR	+3733+12658	Asia/Seoul
-- 
2.27.0

