On Wed, 16 Feb 2005, Martin Wohlert wrote: @> Well, what is a time zone anyway? @> @> Peter H. Granzeau and myself assumes/knows/thinks (strike out whatever is @> inappropriate) that every "one hour strip" of the Earth is one time zone, @> while others assumes/knows/thinks that each place with the same time is the @> same time zone, regardless of wherever the sun is. @> @> Who's right? What, you think it's as simple as who's right and who's wrong? Heh. The problem here is that time is an artificial human construct that we use to conveniently measure a certain aspect of the universe. We've made a couple of common-sense choices (the unit called "day" is about one rotation of our planet on its axis, and the unit called "year" is about one orbit of our planet around the sun) and basically standardized the size of the time units worldwide, but beyond that we're just making stuff up. And the problem is that different countries, and in some cases different areas in the different countries, have decided to make up different stuff. So the question is: what does it mean for it to be 06:00? If you want that to mean "it's morning", then you have to make 06:00 occur at non-simultaneous times at different points on the globe, and adjust 06:00 periodically when the day changes size. And of course you're just SOL at the poles. This is the approach the U.S. has taken (along with most of the civilized world). If you just think 06:00 means "six hours after we've arbitrarily started the day, even if we're starting the day in the afernoon here", then you don't have to do any of that. That's basically what China has decided. So, long story longer: which group is right depends on what you mean by "time zone". The dictionary says a time zone has to follow both rules: it must be one of 24 longitudinal divisions and it must keep the same time. So I suppose, according to the Keepers of the English Language, China doesn't have any time zones at all (since it keeps different time in those strips than other things which share the same strip do).