A map of the TZ timezones of Canada

The tz_ca shapefile (1.8 Mb) captures the boundaries of the TZ timezones of Canada.

The geometries are primarily derived from the fip10s data, together with intra-provinces boundaries described below.

Snapshot of the zones

This is a snaphsot of the zones (many of the smaller zones are not visible at this scale):

Logical description of the zones

CA01 Alberta

• America/Edmonton for the whole province

CA02 British Columbia

• America/Edmonton: east Kootenay region, including the city of Cranbrook. Data provided by Chris Walton
• America/Dawson_Creek: area around Dawson Creek; area around Creston. Data provided by Chris Walton.
• America/Vancouver for the rest of the province

Chris Walton describes the area around Creston as follows:

Please note that to the best of my knowledge, there is no official set of boundaries for the time zone areas in BC.

Some of the paper road maps published by non-government sources have time zone boundaries... but the zone boundaries vary from one map to the next. The area around Creston is generally ignored altogether.

One must keep in mind that much of interior BC is rugged and mountainous with few roads and few people. Time may have no meaning if you are in the middle of nowhere!

Here are some notes about the boundaries I plotted:

• In places where maps do agree, it is clear that time zone boundaries tend to follow mountain ranges (i.e. drainage basin boundaries).
• Sometimes (but not always) the boundaries coincide with municipal district boundaries; where this happens it is easy to plot an accurate line.
• www.milebymile.com lists a number of points where time zone signs are posted; I tried to make the boundaries cross at these points. I am fairly confident that the area I plotted around Creston crosses highway 3 at the correct locations.
• Where possible I tried to make the boundaries agree with the National Research Council Maps... but the resolution of these maps is too low to be able to pull accurate information.
• Where possible I made the boundaries agree with paper road maps.
• I made the boundary follow the eastern edge of Glacier National Park even though most paper road maps show the park divided into two; the park definitely operates on Pacific Time, and there is supposedly a time zone sign just east of the park.
• I had no good data for the western boundary of the Creston area southwest of Kooteney Lake other than the fact that there is supposedly a time zone sign along hightway 3 at the top of the Salmo-Creston mountain pass. I tried to make the line follow the mountains and avoid crossing any roads other than Highway 3... but with the latest Google Earth imagery, it appears my line crosses a number of logging roads. I believe I need to move the line about 10km west and make it pass through Ripple Mountain; this puts all logging roads east of Ripple Mountain on Creston Time and all logging roads west of Ripple Mountain on Vancouver Time. The theory is that loggers working east of Ripple Mountain must come from Creston and the loggers working west of Ripple Mountain must come Salmo because the roads don't cross the mountain; and we assume that loggers don't change their watches everytime they go into the woods to cut down a tree.

CA03 Manitoba

• America/Winnipeg for the whole province

CA04 New Brunswick

• America/Moncton for the whole province

CA05 Newfoundland and Labrador

• America/St_Johns, America/Goose_Bay: the boundary between the two is approximately that shown at http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/Magazine/SO98/alacarte.asp. Data provided by Chris Walton. Chris writes: The boundary between Atlantic Time and Newfoundland Time is somewhat arbitrary and to the best of my knowledge is not published in any detail on any government issued maps. This is rugged terrain with very few people. I placed Cartwright and the Cartwright airport are on Atlantic Time and Paradise River on Newfoundland time which I believe to be correct.

CA07 Nova Scotia

• America/Halifax, America/Glace_Bay: the boundary between the two is ?

CA08 Ontario

• America/Rainy_River is around the town of Rainy River. We (arbitrarily) use the Rainy River township limits. Data digitized from CanMatrix map 052D15 Rainy River, 3rd edition.
• America/Thunder_Bay is around the town of Thunder Bay. We (arbitrarily) use the Thunder_Bay township limits. Data digitized from CanMatrix maps 052A06 Thunder Bay, 7th edition and 052A11 Onion Lake, 3rd edition.
• America/Nipigon is around the town of Nipigon. We (arbitrarily) use the Nipigon township limits. Data digitized from CanMatrix maps 052A16 Red Rock, 2nd edition and 052H01 Nipigon, 2nd edition.
• America/Atikokan is around the town of Atikokan. We (arbitrarily) use the township of Atikokan and the Quetico Provincial Park. Data provided by Chris Walton.
• the rest of the province is divided between America/Winnipeg (~ west of 90W) and America/Toronto (~ east of 90W). On the west side of 90W, the communities of Mishkeegogamang and Pickle Lake used America/Toronto. On the east side of 90W, the communities of Big Trout Lake, Angling Lake, Wunnummin Lake, Kasabonika, and Kingfisher Lake. Data provided by Chris Walton.

CA09 Prince Edward Island

• America/Montreal for the whole province

CA10 Quebec

• America/Blanc-Sablon is the Basse-Côte-Nord territory. Data provided by Chris Walton.
• America/Halifax for the Îles-de-la-Madeleine
• America/Moncton for the Listuguj reserve. Data provided by Chris Walton.
• America/Montreal for the rest of the province, including the whole of Anticosti Island (According to Justice Quebec, “Tout le territoire de la Minganie, qui inclut l’île d’Anticosti, vit à l’heure normale ou avancée de l’Est.” )

CA11 Saskatchewan

The Saskatchewan Time Act provides for various areas, in particular school divisions (before their reorganization) to choose their time.

• America/Swift_Current is around the town of Swift Current. We (arbitrarily) use the Swift Current city limits. [Should that be the Swift Current Time Option Area: the Swift Current Rural School Division No. 75 of Saskatchewan, the Swift Current School Division No. 94 and the Swift Current Roman Catholic Separate School Division No. 11 of Saskatchewan?] Data digitized from CanMatrix map 075J05 Swift Current, 3rd edition.
• America/Edmonton for the Battle River Time Option Area, defined by the Battle River School Division No. 60. Data provided by Chris Walton.
• America/Winnipeg for the area around ? [Should that be a Time Option Area?]. Data provided by Chris Walton.
• America/Regina for the rest of the province

CA12 Yukon Territory

• America/Dawson is around the town of Dawson. We (arbitrarily) use the township limits digitized from CanMatrix map 116B03 Dawson, 2nd edition
• America/Whitehorse for the rest of the province

CA13 Northwest Territories

• America/Inuvik is around Inuvik. We (arbitrarily) use the city limits digitized from CanMatrix map 107B07 Inuvik, 2nd edition
• America/Yellowknife for the rest of the province

CA14 Nunavut

• America/Resolute is the Cornwallis island
• America/Coral_Harbour is at least the Southampton island; we also include somewhat arbitrarily White and Coats islands and smaller islands in the area. Note that America/Coral_Harbour is linked by tz to America/Atikokan and does not appear in zone.tab, but it probably should
• America/Pangnirtung is the area east of 68W
• America/Iqualuit is the area between 85W and 68W, excluding the area attributed to America/Coral_Harbour
• America/Cambdridge_Bay and America/Rankin_Islet form the rest of the territory. The boundary is ? Data provided by Chris Walton.

Construction of the shapefile

We have a separate shapefile for each province. In each shapefile, we capture the timezone boundaries internal to the province. The idea is that those shapefiles can be combined with various base shapefiles providing the provincial boundaries. (The particular problem we want to solve is that Canada has many islands, and we prefer to not have to worry about those and the provinces they are in when dealing with timezones). The collection of shapefiles is available here (27 Kb), along with a script to perform the rather mundane steps of assembly.

Contact - Thanks

History:

• October 4, 2008:
  • clarification of the Anticosti island
  • added the missing America/Coral_Harbour
  • east Kootenay region of BC moved to America/Edmonton
  • added details on the data from Chris Walton
• September 16, 2008: first version