Asia/Shanghai

From Anthony Fok (2001-12-20):
BTW, I did some research on-line and found some info regarding these five
historic timezones from some Taiwan websites.  And yes, there are official
Chinese names for these locales (before 1949).

From Jesper Nørgaard Welen (2006-07-14):
I have investigated the timezones around 1970 on the
https://www.astro.com/atlas site [with provinces and county
boundaries summarized below]....  A few other exceptions were two
counties on the Sichuan side of the Xizang-Sichuan border,
counties Dege and Baiyu which lies on the Sichuan side and are
therefore supposed to be GMT+7, Xizang region being GMT+6, but Dege
county is GMT+8 according to astro.com while Baiyu county is GMT+6
(could be true), for the moment I am assuming that those two
counties are mistakes in the astro.com data.

From Paul Eggert (2017-01-05):
Alois Treindl kindly sent me translations of the following two sources:

(1)
Guo Qing-sheng (National Time-Service Center, CAS, Xi'an 710600, China)
Beijing Time at the Beginning of the PRC
China Historical Materials of Science and Technology
(Zhongguo ke ji shi liao, 中国科技史料). 2003;24(1):5-9.
http://oversea.cnki.net/kcms/detail/detail.aspx?filename=ZGKS200301000&dbname=CJFD2003
It gives evidence that at the beginning of the PRC, Beijing time was
officially apparent solar time!  However, Guo also says that the
evidence is dubious, as the relevant institute of astronomy had not
been taken over by the PRC yet.  It's plausible that apparent solar
time was announced but never implemented, and that people continued
to use UT+8.  As the Shanghai radio station (and I presume the
observatory) was still under control of French missionaries, it
could well have ignored any such mandate.

(2)
Guo Qing-sheng (Shaanxi Astronomical Observatory, CAS, Xi'an 710600, China)
A Study on the Standard Time Changes for the Past 100 Years in China
[undated and unknown publication location]
It says several things:
* The Qing dynasty used local apparent solar time throughout China.
* The Republic of China instituted Beijing mean solar time effective
the official calendar book of 1914.
* The French Concession in Shanghai set up signal stations in
French docks in the 1890s, controlled by Xujiahui (Zikawei)
Observatory and set to local mean time.
* "From the end of the 19th century" it changed to UT+8.
* Chinese Customs (by then reduced to a tool of foreign powers)
eventually standardized on this time for all ports, and it
became used by railways as well.
* In 1918 the Central Observatory proposed dividing China into
five time zones (see below for details).  This caught on
at first only in coastal areas observing UT+8.
* During WWII all of China was in theory was at UT+7.  In practice
this was ignored in the west, and I presume was ignored in
Japanese-occupied territory.
* Japanese-occupied Manchuria was at UT+9, i.e., Japan time.
* The five-zone plan was resurrected after WWII and officially put into
place (with some modifications) in March 1948.  It's not clear
how well it was observed in areas under Nationalist control.
* The People's Liberation Army used UT+8 during the civil war.

An AP article "Shanghai Internat'l Area Little Changed" in the
Lewiston (ME) Daily Sun (1939-05-29), p 17, said "Even the time is
different - the occupied districts going by Tokyo time, an hour
ahead of that prevailing in the rest of Shanghai."  Guess that the
Xujiahui Observatory was under French control and stuck with UT +08.

In earlier versions of this file, China had many separate Zone entries, but
this was based on what were apparently incorrect data in Shanks & Pottenger.
This has now been simplified to the two entries Asia/Shanghai and
Asia/Urumqi, with the others being links for backward compatibility.
Proposed in 1918 and theoretically in effect until 1949 (although in practice
mainly observed in coastal areas), the five zones were:

Changbai Time ("Long-white Time", Long-white = Heilongjiang area) UT +08:30
Now part of Asia/Shanghai; its pre-1970 times are not recorded here.
Heilongjiang (except Mohe county), Jilin

Zhongyuan Time ("Central plain Time") UT +08
Now part of Asia/Shanghai.
most of China
Milne gives 8:05:43.2 for Xujiahui Observatory time....
Guo says Shanghai switched to UT +08 "from the end of the 19th century".

Long-shu Time (probably as Long and Shu were two names of the area) UT +07
Now part of Asia/Shanghai; its pre-1970 times are not recorded here.
Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Ningxia, Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Yunnan;
most of Gansu; west Inner Mongolia; east Qinghai; and the Guangdong
counties Deqing, Enping, Kaiping, Luoding, Taishan, Xinxing,
Yangchun, Yangjiang, Yu'nan, and Yunfu.

Xin-zang Time ("Xinjiang-Tibet Time") UT +06
This region is now part of either Asia/Urumqi or Asia/Shanghai with
current boundaries uncertain; times before 1970 for areas that
disagree with Ürümqi or Shanghai are not recorded here.
The Gansu counties Aksay, Anxi, Dunhuang, Subei; west Qinghai;
the Guangdong counties  Xuwen, Haikang, Suixi, Lianjiang,
Zhanjiang, Wuchuan, Huazhou, Gaozhou, Maoming, Dianbai, and Xinyi;
east Tibet, including Lhasa, Chamdo, Shigaise, Jimsar, Shawan and Hutubi;
east Xinjiang, including Ürümqi, Turpan, Karamay, Korla, Minfeng, Jinghe,
Wusu, Qiemo, Xinyan, Wulanwusu, Jinghe, Yumin, Tacheng, Tuoli, Emin,
Shihezi, Changji, Yanqi, Heshuo, Tuokexun, Tulufan, Shanshan, Hami,
Fukang, Kuitun, Kumukuli, Miquan, Qitai, and Turfan.

Kunlun Time UT +05:30
This region is now in the same status as Xin-zang Time (see above).
West Tibet, including Pulan, Aheqi, Shufu, Shule;
West Xinjiang, including Aksu, Atushi, Yining, Hetian, Cele, Luopu, Nileke,
Zhaosu, Tekesi, Gongliu, Chabuchaer, Huocheng, Bole, Pishan, Suiding,
and Yarkand.

From Luther Ma (2009-10-17):
Almost all (>99.9%) ethnic Chinese (properly ethnic Han) living in
Xinjiang use Chinese Standard Time. Some are aware of Xinjiang time,
but have no need of it. All planes, trains, and schools function on
what is called "Beijing time." When Han make an appointment in Chinese
they implicitly use Beijing time.

On the other hand, ethnic Uyghurs, who make up about half the
population of Xinjiang, typically use "Xinjiang time" which is two
hours behind Beijing time, or UT +06. The government of the Xinjiang
Uyghur Autonomous Region, (XAUR, or just Xinjiang for short) as well as
local governments such as the Ürümqi city government use both times in
publications, referring to what is popularly called Xinjiang time as
"Ürümqi time." When Uyghurs make an appointment in the Uyghur language
they almost invariably use Xinjiang time.

(Their ethnic Han compatriots would typically have no clue of its
widespread use, however, because so extremely few of them are fluent in
Uyghur, comparable to the number of Anglo-Americans fluent in Navajo.)

(...As with the rest of China there was a brief interval ending in 1990
or 1991 when summer time was in use.  The confusion was severe, with
the province not having dual times but four times in use at the same
time. Some areas remained on standard Xinjiang time or Beijing time and
others moving their clocks ahead.)

From Luther Ma (2009-11-19):
With the risk of being redundant to previous answers these are the most common
English "transliterations" (w/o using non-English symbols):

1. Wulumuqi...
2. Kashi...
3. Urumqi...
4. Kashgar...
...
5. It seems that Uyghurs in Ürümqi has been using Xinjiang since at least the
1960's. I know of one Han, now over 50, who grew up in the surrounding
countryside and used Xinjiang time as a child.

6. Likewise for Kashgar and the rest of south Xinjiang I don't know of any
start date for Xinjiang time.

Without having access to local historical records, nor the ability to legally
publish them, I would go with October 1, 1949, when Xinjiang became the Uyghur
Autonomous Region under the PRC. (Before that Uyghurs, of course, would also
not be using Beijing time, but some local time.)

From David Cochrane (2014-03-26):
Just a confirmation that Ürümqi time was implemented in Ürümqi on 1 Feb 1986:
https://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,960684,00.html

From Luther Ma (2014-04-22):
I have interviewed numerous people of various nationalities and from
different localities in Xinjiang and can confirm the information in Guo's
report regarding Xinjiang, as well as the Time article reference by David
Cochrane.  Whether officially recognized or not (and both are officially
recognized), two separate times have been in use in Xinjiang since at least
the Cultural Revolution: Xinjiang Time (XJT), aka Ürümqi Time or local time;
and Beijing Time.  There is no confusion in Xinjiang as to which name refers
to which time. Both are widely used in the province, although in some
population groups might be use one to the exclusion of the other.  The only
problem is that computers and smart phones list Ürümqi (or Kashgar) as
having the same time as Beijing.

From Paul Eggert (2014-06-30):
In the early days of the PRC, Tibet was given its own time zone (UT +06)
but this was withdrawn in 1959 and never reinstated; see Tubten Khétsun,
Memories of life in Lhasa under Chinese Rule, Columbia U Press, ISBN
978-0231142861 (2008), translator's introduction by Matthew Akester, p x.
As this is before our 1970 cutoff, Tibet doesn't need a separate zone.

Xinjiang Time is well-documented as being officially recognized.  E.g., see
"The Working-Calendar for The Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Government"
<http://www.sinkiang.gov.cn/service/ourworking/> (2014-04-22).
Unfortunately, we have no good records of time in Xinjiang before 1986.
During the 20th century parts of Xinjiang were ruled by the Qing dynasty,
the Republic of China, various warlords, the First and Second East Turkestan
Republics, the Soviet Union, the Kuomintang, and the People's Republic of
China, and tracking down all these organizations' timekeeping rules would be
quite a trick.  Approximate this lost history by a transition from LMT to
UT +06 at the start of 1928, the year of accession of the warlord Jin Shuren,
which happens to be the date given by Shanks & Pottenger (no doubt as a
guess) as the transition from LMT.  Ignore the usage of +08 before
1986-02-01 under the theory that the transition date to +08 is unknown and
that the sort of users who prefer Asia/Urumqi now typically ignored the
+08 mandate back then.

Zone	NAME		STDOFF	RULES	FORMAT	[UNTIL]
Beijing time, used throughout China; represented by Shanghai.
STDOFF	8:05:43.2