A century is a period of 100 years or 10 decades . Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word century comes from the Latin centum , meaning one hundred . Century is sometimes abbreviated as c.
7-417: A centennial or centenary is a hundredth anniversary, or a celebration of this, typically the remembrance of an event which took place a hundred years earlier. Although a century can mean any arbitrary period of 100 years , there are two viewpoints on the nature of standard centuries. One is based on strict construction, while the other is based on popular perception. According to the strict construction,
14-418: The 1st century AD , which began with AD 1 , ended with AD 100 , and the 2nd century with AD 200 ; in this model, the n -th century starts with a year that follows a year with a multiple of 100 (except the first century as it began after the year 1 BC ) and ends with the next coming year with a multiple of 100 ( 100n ), i.e. the 20th century comprises the years 1901 to 2000 , and the 21st century comprises
21-426: The 21st century. (This is similar to the grouping of "0-to-9 decades" which share the 'tens' digit.) To facilitate calendrical calculations by computer, the astronomical year numbering and ISO 8601 systems both contain a year zero , with the astronomical year 0 corresponding to the year 1 BC, the astronomical year -1 corresponding to 2 BC, and so on. Informally, years may be referred to in groups based on
28-619: The hundreds part of the year. In this system, the years 1900–1999 are referred to as the nineteen hundreds ( 1900s ). Aside from English usage, this system is used in Swedish , Danish , Norwegian , Icelandic , Finnish and Hungarian . The Swedish nittonhundratalet (or 1900-talet ), Danish nittenhundredetallet (or nittenhundredetallet ), Norwegian nittenhundretallet (or 1900-tallet ), Finnish tuhatyhdeksänsataaluku (or 1900-luku ) and Hungarian ezerkilencszázas évek (or 1900-as évek ) refer unambiguously to
35-411: The years 2001 to 2100 in strict usage. In popular perception and practice, centuries are structured by grouping years based on sharing the 'hundreds' digit(s). In this model, the n -th century starts with the year that ends in "00" and ends with the year ending in "99"; for example, in popular culture , the years 1900 to 1999 constitute the 20th century, and the years 2000 to 2099 constitute
42-608: The years 1501–1600 or 1500–1599. While the century has been commonly used in the West, other cultures and calendars have utilized differently sized groups of years in a similar manner. The Hindu calendar , in particular, summarizes its years into groups of 60, while the Aztec calendar considers groups of 52. Centennial A centennial , or centenary in British English , is a 100th anniversary or otherwise relates to
49-467: The years 1900–1999. In Swedish, however, a century is in more rare cases referred to as det n-te seklet/århundradet ("the n-th century") rather than n-hundratalet , i.e. the 17th century is (in rare cases) referred to as 17:(d)e/sjuttonde århundradet/seklet rather than 1600-talet and mainly also referring to the years 1601–1700 rather than 1600–1699; according to Svenska Akademiens ordbok , 16:(d)e/sextonde århundradet may refer to either
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