3 ms·

It is, there are a couple of timezones where not only there is a hour difference, but even a 30 and 45 minutes difference. India is UTC +5:30, and Lord Howe Isl

It is, there are a couple of timezones where not only there is a hour difference, but even a 30 and 45 minutes difference. India is UTC +5:30, and Lord Howe Island is UTC +10:30 / +11:00 and New Zealand, Chatham Islands is UTC +12:45 / +13:45, Iran is UTC +3:30 / +4:30 and so on. Where the format is X / Y, that means X is Standard Time, and Y is Daylight time. Messy. I think the full list can be found here: https://www.timeanddate.com/time/time-zones-interesting.html https://www.timeanddate.com/time/time-zones-interesting.html You can use a Bash script that can give you an exhaustive list based on files from /usr/share/zoneinfo/, i.e. find timezones with non-whole hour offsets.

volemo 1y ago
I don’t understand this. What practical difference does it make making the time to round to the nearest quarter of an hour instead of the nearest hour? Personally, I don’t care if noon (sun is in zenith) happens half an hour before 12:00 or half an hour after. Why do such time zones exist?
- johnisgood 1y ago
  Well, I do not know the answer to that, my guess is that it is for historical, political, geographical, and socio-economic reasons. For example in terms of India, they had two timezones before they adopted a compromise: UTC+5:30. Nepal uses UTC+5:45, partly to distinguish itself from Indian Standard Time, reinforcing national identity.
  - volemo 1y ago
    > India, they had two timezones before they adopted a compromise: UTC+5:30. Truly, a compromise is when nobody is happy. ._\
    - johnisgood 1y ago
      Truthfully, I do not know the story behind it. If you do, feel free to share.
- johnisgood 1y ago
  Oh by the way, check this out, this is one of the news in 2025b tzdata: # From Roozbeh Pournader (2025-03-18): # ... the exact time of Iran's transition from +0400 to +0330 ... was Friday # 1357/8/19 AP=1978-11-10. Here's a newspaper clip from the Ettela'at # newspaper, dated 1357/8/14 AP=1978-11-05, translated from Persian # (at https://w.wiki/DUEY): # Following the government's decision about returning the official time # to the previous status, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Energy # announced today: At the hour 24 of Friday 19th of Aban (=1978-11-10), # the country's time will be pulled back half an hour. From https://github.com/eggert/tz/blob/main/asia#L1503 https://github.com/eggert/tz/blob/main/asia#L1503. Pretty sure we can find a lot more oddities that are way worse.

volemo 1y ago

I don’t understand this. What practical difference does it make making the time to round to the nearest quarter of an hour instead of the nearest hour? Personally, I don’t care if noon (sun is in zenith) happens half an hour before 12:00 or half an hour after. Why do such time zones exist?

johnisgood 1y ago
Well, I do not know the answer to that, my guess is that it is for historical, political, geographical, and socio-economic reasons. For example in terms of India, they had two timezones before they adopted a compromise: UTC+5:30. Nepal uses UTC+5:45, partly to distinguish itself from Indian Standard Time, reinforcing national identity.
- volemo 1y ago
  > India, they had two timezones before they adopted a compromise: UTC+5:30. Truly, a compromise is when nobody is happy. ._\
  - johnisgood 1y ago
    Truthfully, I do not know the story behind it. If you do, feel free to share.
johnisgood 1y ago
Oh by the way, check this out, this is one of the news in 2025b tzdata: # From Roozbeh Pournader (2025-03-18): # ... the exact time of Iran's transition from +0400 to +0330 ... was Friday # 1357/8/19 AP=1978-11-10. Here's a newspaper clip from the Ettela'at # newspaper, dated 1357/8/14 AP=1978-11-05, translated from Persian # (at https://w.wiki/DUEY): # Following the government's decision about returning the official time # to the previous status, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Energy # announced today: At the hour 24 of Friday 19th of Aban (=1978-11-10), # the country's time will be pulled back half an hour. From https://github.com/eggert/tz/blob/main/asia#L1503 https://github.com/eggert/tz/blob/main/asia#L1503. Pretty sure we can find a lot more oddities that are way worse.