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<title>Sources for Time Zone and Daylight Saving Time Data</title>
<link rel="schema.DC" href="http://purl.org/DC/elements/1.1/" />
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<meta name="DC.Creator" content="Paul Eggert" />
<meta name="DC.Contributor" content="Arthur David Olson" />
<meta name="DC.Date" content="2000/10/03" />
<meta name="DC.Description"
content="Sources of information about time zones and daylight saving time" />
<meta name="DC.Identifier" content="http://www.twinsun.com/tz/tz-link.htm" />
<meta name="Keywords"
content="database,daylight saving,DST,time zone,timezone,tz,zoneinfo" />
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<h1>Sources for Time Zone and Daylight Saving Time Data</h1>
<address>
%W%
</address>
<p>
Please send corrections to this web page to the
<a href="mailto:tz@elsie.nci.nih.gov">time zone mailing list</a>.
</p>
<h2>The <samp>tz</samp> database</h2>
<p>
The public-domain time zone database contains code and data
1997-07-18 00:02:23 -04:00
that represent the history of local time
for many representative locations around the globe.
It is updated periodically to reflect changes made by political bodies
to UTC offsets and daylight-saving rules.
This database (often called <samp>tz</samp> or <samp>zoneinfo</samp>)
1997-07-18 00:02:23 -04:00
is used by several implementations,
including
<a href="http://www.linux.org/">GNU/Linux</a>,
<a href="http://www.freebsd.org/">FreeBSD</a>,
<a href="http://www.netbsd.org/">NetBSD</a>,
<a href="http://www.openbsd.org/">OpenBSD</a>,
<a href="http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/">DJGPP</a>,
<a href="http://unix.hp.com/operating/">HP-UX</a>,
<a href="http://www.sgi.com/developers/technology/irix.html">IRIX</a>,
<a href="http://www.sco.com/products/openserver/">SCO OpenServer</a>,
<a href="http://www.sun.com/solaris/">Solaris</a>, and
<a href="http://www.sco.com/unixware/">UnixWare</a>.
In the <samp>tz</samp> database's
<a href="ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/">FTP distribution</a>,
1997-07-18 00:02:23 -04:00
the code is in the file <samp>tzcode<var>C</var>.tar.gz</samp>,
where <samp><var>C</var></samp> is the code's version;
similarly, the data are in <samp>tzdata<var>D</var>.tar.gz</samp>,
where <samp><var>D</var></samp> is the data's version.
The code lets you compile the <samp>tz</samp> source files into
machine-readable binary files, one for each location. It also lets
you read a <samp>tz</samp> binary file and interpret time stamps for that
location.</p>
<p>
The data are by no means authoritative. If you find errors, please
send changes to the <a href="mailto:tz@elsie.nci.nih.gov">time zone
mailing list</a>. You can also <a
href="mailto:tz-request@elsie.nci.nih.gov">subscribe</a> to the
mailing list, or retrieve the <a
href="ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzarchive.gz">archive of old
messages</a> (in <a href="http://www.gzip.org/">gzip</a> compressed
format).</p>
<p>
1997-07-18 00:02:23 -04:00
The Web has several other sources for time zone and daylight saving time data.
Here are some recent links that may be of interest.
</p>
<h2>Web pages using recent versions of the <samp>tz</samp> database</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.bsdi.com/date/">Date and Time Gateway</a> is a
text-based point-and-click interface to tables of current time
throughout the world.</li>
<li><a href="http://sandbox.xerox.com/stewart/tzconvert.cgi">CGI/1.0
URL Timezone Converter</a> is a similar interface, with source code
written in <a href="http://www.perl.org/">Perl</a>, using what Paul
Stewart calls the "20-line hack no one will let me forget".</li>
<li>Fancier web interfaces, roughly in ascending order of complexity, include:
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.hilink.com.au/times/">Local Times Around the
World</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.convertit.com/Go/ConvertIt/World_Time/Current_Time.ASP">Current Time in 1000 Places</a></li>
<li><a href="http://timezoneconverter.com/">Time Zone Converter</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="http://www.tick2tock.com/cgi-bin/TZConverter">Tick2Tock
time zone converter</a> is a multilingual interface.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.holidayfestival.com/">The Worldwide Holiday
&amp; Festival Site</a> lists DST-related clock changes along with
holidays.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/">The World Clock</a>
is a web interface to a time zone database derived from
<samp>tz</samp>'s.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Other <samp>tz</samp> compilers</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.karuna.freeserve.co.uk/vzic.tgz">Vzic</a>
compiles <samp>tz</samp> source into VTIMEZONE text as specified by
the <a href="ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2445.txt">iCalendar</a>
specification published by the <a
href="http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/calsch-charter.html">IETF
Calendaring and Scheduling Working Group</a>. Vzic is freely
available under the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GNU
General Public License (GPL)</a>.</li>
<li>Possible XML schemata for the <samp>tz</samp> data include <a
href="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/foo">one</a> sketched out by <a
href="http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/">Tim Berners-Lee</a> and
<a
href="http://developer.iplanet.com/docs/wpapers/calendar/ietf.txt">another</a>
used by the <a
href="http://www.iplanet.com/products/iplanet_calendar/">iPlanet
Calendar Server</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Other <samp>tz</samp> binary file readers</h2>
<ul>
<li>The <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/">GNU C Library</a>
has an independent, thread-safe implementation of
a <samp>tz</samp> binary file reader.
This library is freely available under the
<a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lesser.html">
GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)</a>,
and is widely used in GNU/Linux systems.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.bmsi.com/java/#TZ">ZoneInfo.java</a>
is a <samp>tz</samp> binary file reader written in Java.
It is freely available under the GNU LGPL.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Other <samp>tz</samp>-based time zone conversion software</h2>
<ul>
<li><a
href="http://www1.tip.nl/~t876506/AboutTimeZonesHC.html">HyperCard
time zones calculator</a> is a HyperCard stack.</li>
<li><a
href="http://timezone50.homepage.com/">Time Zone Converter</a> is a
Microsoft Windows 95/98/NT4 program.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Other time zone databases</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.astro.ch/cgi-bin/atlw3/aq.cgi?lang=e">Astrodienst
- Atlas Query</a> is Astrodienst's Web version of Shanks's
excellent time zone history atlases published in both <a
href="http://astrocom.com/software/pcatlas.html">computer</a> and <a
href="http://astrocom.com/books/xrefa.htm#SHANKS">book</a> form by <a
href="http://astrocom.com/">Astro Communications Services</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://worldtime.com/">WORLDTIME: interactive atlas,
time info, public holidays</a>
contains information on local time, sunrise and sunset,
and public holidays in several hundred cities around the world.</li>
<li><a href="http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/tzones.html">World Time Zones</a>
contains data from the Time Service Department of the US Naval Observatory
(USNO), used as the source
for the <samp>usno*</samp> files in the <samp>tz</samp> distribution.</li>
<li>The <a href="http://www.iata.org/">International
Air Transport Association</a>
publishes the <a href="http://www.iata.org/sked/ssim.htm">Standard
Schedules Information Manual</a>,
which gives current time zone rules for
all the airports served by commercial aviation.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Maps</h2>
<ul>
<li>The <a href="http://www.odci.gov/">United States Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA)</a> publishes a <a
href="http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/reference/Low%20res%20PDF/low802700.pdf">time
zone map</a>; the
<a href="http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/world_maps.html">
Perry-Casta&ntilde;eda Library Map Collection</a>
of the University of Texas at Austin has copies of
recent editions.
1998-05-26 13:01:51 -04:00
The pictorial quality is good,
but the maps do not indicate summer time,
and parts of the data are a few years out of date.</li>
<li><a href="http://worldtimezone.com/">World timezones map with
current time</a>
has several fancy time zone maps; it covers Russia particularly well.
The maps' pictorial quality is not quite as good as the CIA's
but the maps are more up to date.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.worldtimeserver.com/">World Time Server</a>
has a separate little outline map for each region of each country that
currently observes a different time.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Time zone boundaries</h2>
<ul>
<li>Manifold.net's <a
href="http://www.manifold.net/download/freemaps.html">Free Maps and
GIS Data</a> includes a Manifold-format map of world time zone
boundaries distributed under the GPL. The GeoCommunity's <a
href="http://software.geocomm.com/data/intl_timezones.html">International
Time Zones</a> publishes the same data in other formats.</li>
<li>The US Geological Survey's National Atlas of the United States
publishes the <a href="http://www.nationalatlas.gov/timeznm.html">Time
Zones of the United States</a> in the public domain.</li>
<li>The GeoCommunity lists several commercial sources for <a
href="http://spatialnews.geocomm.com/features/timezones/">International
Time Zones and Time Zone Data</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Daylight saving time concepts and history</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://webexhibits.com/daylightsaving/">About Daylight
Saving Time - History, rationale, laws and dates</a>
is a good overall history of DST.</li>
<li><a href="http://toi.iriti.cnr.it/">The
Time of Internet</a>
1997-07-18 00:02:23 -04:00
contains good descriptions of Time Zones and daylight saving time,
with diagrams.
The time zone map is out of date, however.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.phys.uu.nl/~vgent/idl/idl.htm">A History of
the International Date Line</a> tells the story of the most important
time zone boundary.</li>
<li>A few countries have well-documented histories of legal time.
<dl>
<dt>Australia</dt>
<dd>The Community Relations Division of the NSW Attorney General's
Department maintains a history of <a
href="http://www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/crd.nsf/pages/time2">daylight
saving in New South Wales</a>.</dd>
<dt>Brazil</dt>
<dd>The Time Service Department of the National Observatory
records <a href="http://pcdsh01.on.br/DecHV.html"
hreflang="pt-BR">Brazil's daylight saving time decrees (in
Portuguese)</a>.</dd>
<dt>Germany</dt>
<dd>The National Institute for Science and Technology maintains the <a
href="http://www.ptb.de/english/org/4/43/432/lega.htm">Realisation of
Legal Time in Germany</a>.</dd>
<dt>Israel</dt>
<dd>The Ministry of Interior periodically issues <a
href="ftp://ftp.huji.ac.il/pub/tz/announcements"
hreflang="he">announcements (in Hebrew)</a>.</dd>
<dt>Mexico</dt>
<dd>The Investigation and Analysis Service of the Mexican Library of
Congress has published a <a
href="http://www.cddhcu.gob.mx/bibliot/publica/inveyana/polisoc/horver/"
hreflang="es">history of Mexican local time (in Spanish)</a>.</dd>
<dt>Netherlands</dt>
<dd><a href="http://www.phys.uu.nl/~vgent/wettijd/wettijd.htm"
hreflang="nl">De wettelijke tijdregeling in Nederland (in Dutch)</a>
covers the history of local time in the Netherlands from ancient times.</dd>
<dt>United Kingdom</dt>
<dd><a
href="http://student.cusu.cam.ac.uk/~jsm28/british-time/">History of
legal time in Britain</a> is an excellent discussion for the country
with perhaps the best-documented history of clock adjustments.</dd>
</dl></li>
</ul>
<h2>Precision timekeeping</h2>
<ul>
<li><a
href="http://literature.agilent.com/litwebbin/purl.cgi?org_id=tmo&amp;pub_id=5965-7984E">The
Science of Timekeeping</a> is an excellent and thorough introduction
to the theory and practice of precision timekeeping.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~ntp/">Time Server</a> discusses
the Network Time Protocol (NTP), used to synchronize clocks of
Internet hosts.</li>
<li><a href="http://ecco.bsee.swin.edu.au/chronos/GMT-explained.html">A
Few Facts Concerning GMT, UT, and the RGO</a>
answers questions like "What is the difference between GMT and UTC?"</li>
<li><a
href="http://sadira.gb.nrao.edu/~rfisher/Ephemerides/times.html">Astronomical
Times</a> explains more abstruse astronomical time scales like TT, TCG,
and TDB.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/basics/bsf2-3.htm">Basics of
Space Flight - Reference Systems - Time Conventions</a>
briefly explains interplanetary space flight timekeeping.</li>
<li><a href="http://hpiers.obspm.fr/webiers/results/bul/README.html">Bulletins
of IERS</a> contains official publications of the
International Earth Rotation Service, the committee that decides
when leap seconds occur.</li>
<li>The <a
href="http://clockdev.usno.navy.mil/archives/leapsecs.html">Leap
Second Discussion List</a> covers <a
href="http://clockdev.usno.navy.mil/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A3=ind00&amp;L=leapsecs&amp;P=28537&amp;E=2&amp;B=------_=_NextPart_000_01C0781C.F015C5B0&amp;N=GPS-Nov99_Innov.pdf&amp;T=application/octet-stream">McCarthy
and Klepczynski's proposal to remove leap seconds</a>
(which requires discussion list membership to read).
This proposal is being studied by the URSI Commission J <a
href="http://space.mit.edu/URSI/leapsecond.html">Working Group on the
Leap Second</a>, and the <a href="http://www.iau.org/">IAU</a>
has plans to report on this proposal by 2003.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Time notation</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<a href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-time.html">A Summary of
the International Standard Date and Time Notation</a> is a good
summary of <a href="http://www.iso.ch/markete/8601.pdf">ISO
8601:1988 - Data elements and interchange formats - Information interchange
- Representation of dates and times</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Related indexes</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://dmoz.org/Reference/Time/">Open Directory -
Reference: Time</a></li>
<li><a href="tz-art.htm">Time and the Arts</a></li>
<li><a href="http://dir.yahoo.com/Science/Measurements_and_Units/Time/Time_Zones/">Yahoo! - Science:Measurements and Units:Time:Time Zones</a></li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>