Complex time zone techniques

Various technologies and techniques are disclosed that provide support for complex time zones. A framework environment has a time zone API that supports complex time zones. The time zone class allows zero or more adjustment rules to be specified for the time zone object to indicate any daylight saving time adjustments. A feature is provided to allow the time zone to be serialized into a string. When the feature receives a request to serialize a particular time zone to a string, the time zone is serialized to the string. The string contains a certain number of interior records that describe zero or more details about the time zone, the certain number being dependent upon a complexity of the particular time zone. A custom time zone feature is supported that allows a complex time zone to be created programmatically from within an application.