The prefered canonical name is continent-or-ocean/city-or-small-island because continents and cities are more stable than countries and country names. The America/state/city convention is the exception, not the rule.
Some timezone identifiers have changed, e.g. Asia/Calcutta to Asia/Kolkata in 2008 and Europe/Kiev to Europe/Kyiv in 2022. But the TZ DB maintainers are rather reluctant to make such changes, and require “long-time widespread use of the new city name” in English before deciding so.
Some timezone identifiers have changed, e.g. Asia/Calcutta to Asia/Kolkata in 2008 and Europe/Kiev to Europe/Kyiv in 2022. But the TZ DB maintainers are rather reluctant to make such changes, and require “long-time widespread use of the new city name” in English before deciding so.
The naming conventions for timezone identifiers are written out at https://ftp.iana.org/tz/tzdb-2022b/theory.html#naming