Xinjiang Time
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Xinjiang Time (), also known as
Ürümqi Ürümqi ( ; also spelled Ürümchi or without umlauts), formerly known as Dihua (also spelled Tihwa), is the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the far northwest of the People's Republic of China. Ürümqi developed its ...
Time (), is a time standard used in
Xinjiang Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...
,
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
. It is used alongside Beijing Time, which is widely observed by the rest of the country. The time offset is UTC+06:00, which is two hours behind Beijing Time and is the same offset used by
Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan,, pronounced or the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the south, and the People's Republic of China to the east. ...
and most of
Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
. This offset accounts for Xinjiang's geographical location in the westernmost part of China.


History

Xinjiang Time has been abolished and re-established multiple times, particularly during the 1970s and 1980s. In February 1986, the
Chinese government The Government of the People's Republic of China () is an authoritarian political system in the People's Republic of China under the exclusive political leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It consists of legislative, executive, mili ...
approved the use of Xinjiang Time ( UTC+06:00) in
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...
(thus excluding area colonized by
Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (), also known as XPCC or Bingtuan ("The Corps"), is a state-owned economic and Paramilitary forces of China, paramilitary organization in China, China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). ...
) for civil purposes, while military, railroad, aviation, and telecommunication sectors were supposed to continue using Beijing Time ( UTC+08:00).中国标准时制考
However, the decision was rejected by the local ethnic Han population and some Han-dominated regional governments.


Usage

The choice of time zone used in Xinjiang is roughly split along the ethnic divide, with most of the Han population observing Beijing Time, and most of the Uyghur population and some other ethnic groups following Xinjiang Time. Accordingly, the
Xinjiang Television Xinjiang Television (XJTV) ( zh, s=新疆电视台, t=新疆電視台, p=Xīnjiāng Diànshìtái; ug, شىنجاڭ تېلېۋىزىيە ئىستانسى, Shinjang Tëlëviziye Istansi; kk, شينجياڭ تەلەۆيزيا, Şinjiaŋ Televizi ...
network schedules its Chinese channel according to Beijing Time and its Uyghur and Kazakh channels according to Xinjiang Time. In some areas, local authorities use both time standards side by side. The coexistence of two time zones within the same region causes some confusion among the local population, especially when members of multiple ethnic groups want to communicate with each other: whenever a time is mentioned, it is necessary to explicitly state whether the time is Xinjiang Time or Beijing Time, or to convert the time according to the ethnicity of the target audience. Additionally, some ethnic Han in Xinjiang might not be aware of the existence of Xinjiang Time because of the language barrier. Xinjiang residents who use Beijing Time typically schedule their activities two hours after the usual time that those activities would be performed in Eastern China in order to match the sunrise and sunset times. For example, if everyone in Beijing wakes up when the sun rises at 8:00 AM Beijing Time, then Xinjiang residents would plan to wake up at 10:00 AM Beijing Time, because this is when the sunrise would occur in Xinjiang. This is known in Xinjiang as the Xinjiang work/rest time. In 2014,
Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...
released an update to its
iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
mobile operating system that silently changed the default time for users in Xinjiang to Xinjiang Time. This change caused alarms that had been set using Beijing Time to ring two hours later than expected, resulting in a disruption of daily activities on the day after the change was released. In 2018, according to
Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
, a Uyghur man was arrested and sent to a detention center because he set his watch to Xinjiang Time.


IANA time zone database

The territory using Xinjiang Time is covered in the
IANA time zone database The tz database is a collaborative compilation of information about the world's time zones, primarily intended for use with computer programs and operating systems. Paul Eggert is its current editor and maintainer, with the organizational backi ...
by the following zones. Columns marked with * are from the zone.tab file of the database.


See also

*
Time in China The time in China follows a single standard time offset of UTC+08:00 (eight hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time), even though the country spans almost five geographical time zones. The official national standard time is called ''Beijing Tim ...
*
Historical time zones of China The time zones of China refer to the time zone divisions used in China between 1918 and 1949. The first time zone plan was proposed by the Central Observatory (now Beijing Ancient Observatory) of the Beiyang government in Peking (Beijing) in 1918. ...


References

{{Reflist * Time zones