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71-509: The traditional Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar dating from the Han dynasty that combines solar, lunar, and other cycles for various social and agricultural purposes. While the Gregorian calendar has been adopted and adapted in various ways, and is generally the basis for China's standard civic purposes, aspects of the traditional lunisolar calendar remain, including the association of

142-484: A rénzǐ day ( 壬子 ) followed by a water phase. Other days were tracked using the Yellow River Map ( He Tu ). Another version is a four-quarters calendar ( 四時八節曆 ; 四时八节历 ; 'four sections', 'eight seasons calendar', or 四分曆 ; 四分历 ). The weeks were ten days long, with one month consisting of three weeks. A year had 12 months, with a ten-day week intercalated in summer as needed to keep up with

213-406: A Day 1 Wu Xing element. A phase began with a governing-element day ( 行御 ), followed by six 12-day weeks. Each phase consisted of two three-week months, making each year ten months long. Years began on a jiǎzǐ ( 甲子 ) day (and a 72-day wood phase), followed by a bǐngzǐ day ( 丙子 ) and a 72-day fire phase; a wùzǐ ( 戊子 ) day and a 72-day earth phase; a gēngzǐ ( 庚子 ) day and a 72-day metal phase, and

284-735: A Gregorian calendar beginning in October and ending in September. The intercalary month, known as the second Jiǔyuè ( 後九月 ; 后九月 ; 'later Jiǔyuè'), was placed at the end of the year. The Qin calendar was used going into the Han dynasty. Emperor Wu of Han r.  141 – 87 BCE introduced reforms in the seventh of the eleven named eras of his reign, Tàichū ( Chinese : 太初 ; pinyin : Tàichū ; lit. 'Grand Beginning'), 104 BCE – 101 BCE. His Tàichū Calendar ( 太初曆 ; 太初历 ; 'grand beginning calendar') defined

355-469: A calendar useful for agricultural. For farming purposes and keeping track of the seasons Chinese solar or lunisolar calendars were particularly useful. Thus, over time, the publication of multipurpose and agricultural almanacs has become a longstanding tradition in China Various other astronomical phenomena have been incorporated into calendars besides the cycles of the sun and the moon, for example,

426-531: A millennium's worth of history. The major modern form is the Gregorian calendar-based official version of Mainland China , though diaspora versions are also notable in other regions of China and Chinese-influenced cultures. The logic of the various permutations of the Chinese calendar has been based on considerations such as the technical form from mathematics and astronomy, the philosophical considerations, and

497-479: A rough agreement with the solar year and thus with the seasons. The Chinese , Buddhist , Burmese , Assyrian , Hebrew , Jain and Kurdish as well as the traditional Nepali, Hindu , Japanese , Korean , Mongolian , Tibetan , and Vietnamese calendars (in the East Asian Chinese cultural sphere ), plus the ancient Hellenic , Coligny , and Babylonian calendars are all lunisolar. Also, some of

568-508: A similar algorithm that is based on the Julian calendar . A tropical year is approximately 365.2422 days long and a synodic month is approximately 29.5306 days long, so a tropical year is approximately 365.2422 / 29.5306 ≈ 12.36826 months long. Because 0.36826 is between 1 ⁄ 3 and 1 ⁄ 2 , a typical year of 12 months needs to be supplemented with one intercalary or leap month every 2 to 3 years. More precisely, 0.36826

639-484: A solar year as 365 + 385 ⁄ 1539 days (365;06:00:14.035), and the lunar month had 29 + 43 ⁄ 81 days (29;12:44:44.444). Since ( 365 + 385 1539 ) × 19 = ( 29 + 43 81 ) × ( 19 × 12 + 7 ) {\displaystyle \left(365+{\frac {385}{1539}}\right)\times 19=\left(29+{\frac {43}{81}}\right)\times \left(19\times 12+7\right)}

710-480: A special effort to correlate the solar and lunar cycles experienced on earth—an effort which is known to mathematically require some degree of approximation. One of the major features of some traditional calendar systems in China (and elsewhere) has been the idea of the sexagenary cycle . The Chinese lunisolar calendar has had several significant variations over the course of time and history. Many historical variations in

781-491: A spectrum beginning with a prehistorical/mythological time to and through well attested historical dynastic periods. Many individuals have been associated with the development of the Chinese calendar, including researchers into underlying astronomy; and, furthermore, the development of instruments of observation are historically important. Influences from India, Islam, and Jesuits also became significant. Early calendar systems often were closely tied to natural phenomena. Phenology

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852-456: A year; the month after the winter solstice was Zhēngyuè . Modern historical knowledge and records are limited for the earlier calendars. These calendars are known as the six ancient calendars ( 古六曆 ; 古六历 ), or quarter-remainder calendars, ( 四分曆 ; 四分历 ; sìfēnlì ), since all calculate a year as 365 + 1 ⁄ 4 days long. Months begin on the day of the new moon, and a year has 12 or 13 months. Intercalary months (a 13th month) are added to

923-504: Is 4515), and the newspaper Ming Pao ( 明報 ) reckoned 1905 as 4603 (using a year 1 of 2698 BCE, and implying that 2024 CE is 4722). Liu Shipei ( 劉師培 , 1884–1919) created the Yellow Emperor Calendar ( 黃帝紀元, 黃帝曆 or 軒轅紀年 ), with year 1 as the birth of the emperor (which he determined as 2711 BCE, implying that 2024 CE is 4735). There is no evidence that this calendar was used before the 20th century. Liu calculated that

994-527: Is a solar one but the Western Christian churches use a lunar-based algorithm to determine the date of Easter and consequent movable feasts . Briefly, the date is determined with respect to the ecclesiastical full moon that follows the ecclesiastical equinox in March. (These events are almost, but not quite, the same as the actual astronomical observations.) The Eastern Christian churches have

1065-517: Is also called Agricultural Calendar [農曆; 农历; Nónglì; 'farming calendar'], or Yin Calendar [陰曆; 阴历; Yīnlì; 'yin calendar']), based on the concept of Yin Yang and astronomical phenomena, as movements of the sun, moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn (known as the seven luminaries) are the references for the Chinese lunisolar calendar calculations. The Chinese lunisolar calendar is believed to be

1136-479: Is quite close to 7 ⁄ 19 (about 0.3684211): several lunisolar calendars have 7 leap months in every cycle of 19 years (called a ' Metonic cycle '). The Babylonians applied the 19-year cycle in the late sixth century BCE. Intercalation of leap months is frequently controlled by the " epact ", which is the difference between the lunar and solar years (approximately 11 days). The classic Metonic cycle can be reproduced by assigning an initial epact value of 1 to

1207-475: Is the study of periodic events in biological life cycles and how these are influenced by seasonal and interannual variations in climate , as well as habitat factors (such as elevation ). The plum-rains season ( 梅雨 ), the rainy season in late spring and early summer, begins on the first bǐng day after Mangzhong ( 芒種 ) and ends on the first wèi day after Xiaoshu ( 小暑 ). The Three Fu ( 三伏 ; sānfú ) are three periods of hot weather, counted from

1278-569: The Chinese New Year , Lantern Festival (元宵節), Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋節), Dragon Boat Festival (端午節), and Qingming Festival (清明節) are all based upon the Chinese lunisolar calendar . In addition, the popular Chinese zodiac is a classification scheme based on the Chinese calendar that assigns an animal and its reputed attributes to each year in a repeating twelve-year cycle. The Gregorian calendar (the world's most commonly used)

1349-414: The Gregorian calendar , the traditional Chinese calendar governs holidays, such as the Chinese New Year and Lantern Festival , in both China and overseas Chinese communities. It also provides the traditional Chinese nomenclature of dates within a year which people use to select auspicious days for weddings , funerals, moving or starting a business. The evening state-run news program Xinwen Lianbo in

1420-500: The People's Republic of China continues to announce the months and dates in both the Gregorian and the traditional lunisolar calendar. The Chinese calendar system has a long history, which has traditionally been associated with specific dynastic periods . Various individual calendar types have been developed with different names. In terms of historical development, some of the calendar variations are associated with dynastic changes along

1491-529: The Sun , their leap months do not usually occur within a couple of months of perihelion , when the apparent speed of the Sun along the ecliptic is fastest (now about 3 January). This increases the usual number of common months between leap months to roughly 34 months when a doublet of common years occurs, while reducing the number to about 29 months when only a common singleton occurs. An alternative way of dealing with

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1562-690: The Yellow Emperor 's ascension at 2697 BCE and began the Chinese calendar with the reign of Fuxi (which, according to Martini, began in 2952 BCE). Philippe Couplet 's 1686 Chronological table of Chinese monarchs ( Tabula chronologica monarchiae sinicae ) gave the same date for the Yellow Emperor. The Jesuits' dates provoked interest in Europe, where they were used for comparison with Biblical chronology. Modern Chinese chronology has generally accepted Martini's dates, except that it usually places

1633-634: The winter solstice . Song 's Yin calendar ( 殷曆 ; 殷历 ) began its year on the day of the new moon after the winter solstice. After Qin Shi Huang unified China under the Qin dynasty in 221 BCE, the Qin calendar ( 秦曆 ; 秦历 ) was introduced. It followed most of the rules governing the Zhuanxu calendar, but the month order was that of the Xia calendar; the year began with month 10 and ended with month 9, analogous to

1704-830: The "six ancient calendars" in the Warring States period , the Qin calendar in the Qin dynasty , the Han calendar or the Taichu calendar in the Han dynasty and Tang dynasty , the Shoushi calendar in the Yuan dynasty , and the Daming calendar in the Ming dynasty , etc. Starting in 1912, the solar calendar is used together with the lunar calendar in China. The most celebrated Chinese holidays, such as Spring Festival (Chunjie, 春節), also known as

1775-414: The 19 years cycle used for the 7 additional months was taken as an exact one, and not as an approximation. This calendar introduced the 24 solar terms , dividing the year into 24 equal parts of 15° each. Solar terms were paired, with the 12 combined periods known as climate terms. The first solar term of the period was known as a pre-climate (节气), and the second was a mid-climate (中气). Months were named for

1846-652: The 1900 international expedition sent by the Eight-Nation Alliance to suppress the Boxer Rebellion entered Beijing in the 4611th year of the Yellow Emperor. Taoists later adopted Yellow Emperor Calendar and named it Tao Calendar ( 道曆 ). On 2 January 1912, Sun Yat-sen announced changes to the official calendar and era. 1 January was 14 Shíyīyuè 4609 Huángdì year, assuming a year 1 of 2698 BCE, making 2024 CE year 4722. Many overseas Chinese communities like San Francisco's Chinatown adopted

1917-607: The Chinese calendar also includes variations of the modern Chinese calendar, influenced by the Gregorian calendar . Variations include methodologies of the People's Republic of China and Taiwan . In China, the modern calendar is defined by the Chinese national standard GB/T 33661–2017, "Calculation and Promulgation of the Chinese Calendar", issued by the Standardization Administration of China on 12 May 2017. Although modern-day China uses

1988-439: The Chinese calendar are associated with political changes, such as dynastic succession. Solar and agricultural calendars have a long history in China. Purely lunar calendar systems were known in China; however, purely lunar calendars tended to be of limited utility, and were not widely accepted by farmers, who for agricultural purposes needed to focus on predictability of seasons for planting and harvesting purposes, and thus required

2059-466: The Chinese calendar to force everyone to use the Gregorian calendar, and even abolished the Lunar New Year, but faced great opposition. The public needed the astronomical Chinese calendar to do things at a proper time, for example farming and fishing; also, a wide spectrum of festivals and customs observations have been based on the calendar. The government finally compromised and rebranded it as

2130-575: The Christian era has occasionally been used: No reference date is universally accepted. The most popular is the Gregorian calendar ( 公曆 ; 公历 ; gōnglì ; 'common calendar'). During the 17th century, the Jesuit missionaries tried to determine the epochal year of the Chinese calendar. In his Sinicae historiae decas prima (published in Munich in 1658), Martino Martini (1614–1661) dated

2201-421: The Gregorian calendar has been used as the standard basis for civic calendars. The name of calendar is in Chinese : 曆 ; pinyin : lì , and was represented in earlier character forms variants ( 歷, 厤 ), and ultimately derived from an ancient form (秝). The ancient form of the character consists of two stalks of rice plant ( 禾 ), arranged in parallel. This character represents the order in space and also

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2272-526: The Hebrew calendar and the Julian calendar use this sequence. The Buddhist and Hebrew calendars restrict the leap month to a single month of the year; the number of common months between leap months is, therefore, usually 36, but occasionally only 24 months. Because the Chinese and Hindu lunisolar calendars allow the leap month to occur after or before (respectively) any month but use the true apparent motion of

2343-633: The Warring States, especially by states fighting Zhou control during the Warring States period (perhaps 475 BCE - 221 BCE). The state of Lu issued its own Lu calendar( 魯曆 ; 鲁历 ). Jin issued the Xia calendar ( 夏曆 ; 夏历 ) with a year beginning on the day of the new moon nearest the March equinox . Qin issued the Zhuanxu calendar ( 顓頊曆 ; 颛顼历 ), with a year beginning on the day of the new moon nearest

2414-417: The agricultural calendar in 1947, depreciating the calendar to merely agricultural use. After the end of the imperial era, there are some almanacs based upon the algorithm of the last Imperial calendar with longitude of Peking . Such almanacs were under the name of "universal book" 通書 , or under Cantonese name 通勝 , transcribed as Tung Shing . And later these almanacs moved to new calculation based on

2485-509: The ancient pre-Islamic calendars in south Arabia followed a lunisolar system. The Chinese, Coligny and Hebrew lunisolar calendars track more or less the tropical year whereas the Buddhist and Hindu lunisolar calendars track the sidereal year. Therefore, the first three give an idea of the seasons whereas the last two give an idea of the position among the constellations of the full moon. The Chinese calendar or Chinese lunisolar calendar

2556-433: The birth of Confucius. Also, many dynasties had their own dating systems, which could include regnal eras based on the inauguration of a dynasty, the enthronement of a particular monarch, or eras arbitrarily designated due to political or other considerations, such as a desire for a change of luck. Era names are useful for determining dates on artifacts such as ceramics, which were often traditionally dated by an era name during

2627-528: The change. The modern Chinese standard calendar uses the epoch of the Gregorian calendar, which is on 1 January of the year 1 CE. Lunisolar calendars involve correlations of the cycles of the sun (solar) and the moon (lunar). A solar calendar (also called the Tung Shing , the Yellow Calendar or Imperial Calendar , both alluding to Yellow Emperor ) keeps track of the seasons as the earth and

2698-446: The coldest days of the year. Each nine-day unit is known by its order in the set, followed by "nine" ( 九 ). In traditional Chinese culture , "nine" represents the infinity, which is also the number of "Yang". According to one belief nine times accumulation of "Yang" gradually reduces the "Yin", and finally the weather becomes warm. Lunar months were originally named according to natural phenomena. Current naming conventions use numbers as

2769-595: The country's official calendar at the beginning of the 20th century, its use has continued. The Republic of China Calendar published by the Beiyang government of the Republic of China still listed the dates of the Chinese calendar in addition to the Gregorian calendar. In 1929, the Nationalist government tried to ban the traditional Chinese calendar. The Kuómín Calendar published by the government no longer listed

2840-514: The dates of the Chinese calendar. However, Chinese people were used to the traditional calendar and many traditional customs were based on the Chinese calendar. The ban failed and was lifted in 1934. The latest Chinese calendar was " New Edition of Wànniánlì , revised edition", edited by Beijing Purple Mountain Observatory, People's Republic of China. From 1645 to 1913 the Shíxiàn or Chongzhen

2911-557: The day. Since the intercalary month is determined by the first month without a mid-climate and the mid-climate time varies by time zone, countries that adopted the calendar but calculate with their own time could vary from the time in China. Lunisolar calendar Their months are based on the regular cycle of the Moon's phases. So lunisolar calendars are lunar calendars with – in contrast to them – additional intercalation rules being used to bring them into

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2982-404: The development of the calendar include Gan De , Shi Shen , and Zu Chongzhi Early technological developments aiding in calendar development include the development of the gnomon . Later technological developments useful to the calendar system include naming, numbering and mapping of the sky, the development of analog computational devices such as the armillary sphere and the water clock, and

3053-543: The early Qing dynasty , Johann Adam Schall von Bell submitted the calendar which was edited by the lead of Xu Guangqi to the Shunzhi Emperor . The Qing government issued it as the Shíxiàn (seasonal) calendar. In this calendar, the solar terms are 15° each along the ecliptic and it can be used as a solar calendar . However, the length of the climate term near the perihelion is less than 30 days and there may be two mid-climate terms. The Shíxiàn calendar changed

3124-520: The efforts to mathematically correlate the solar and lunar cycles from the perspective of the earth, which however are known to require some degree of numeric approximation or compromise. The earliest record of the Chinese lunisolar calendar was in the Zhou dynasty (1050 BC – 771 BC, around 3000 years ago. Throughout history, the Chinese lunisolar calendar had many variations and evolved with different dynasties with increasing accuracy, including

3195-432: The efforts to mathematically correlate the solar and lunar cycles from the perspective of the earth, which, however, are known to require some degree of numeric approximation or compromises. The general use of the Gregorian calendar includes the observing traditional lunisolar holidays. There are many types and subtypes of the Chinese calendar, partly reflecting developments in astronomical observation and horology , with over

3266-482: The end of the year. The Qiang and Dai calendars are modern versions of the Zhuanxu calendar, used by mountain peoples. The first lunisolar calendar was the Zhou calendar ( 周曆 ; 周历 ), introduced under the Zhou dynasty (1046 BCE – 256 BCE). This calendar sets the beginning of the year at the day of the new moon before the winter solstice. Several competing lunisolar calendars were also introduced as Zhou devolved into

3337-477: The establishment of observatories. From the Warring States period (ending in 221 BCE), six especially significant calendar systems are known to have begun to be developed. Later on, during their future course in history, the modern names for the ancient six calendars were also developed, and can be translated into English as Huangdi, Yin, Zhou, Xia, Zhuanxu, and Lu. There are various Chinese terms for calendar variations including: The traditional Chinese calendar

3408-486: The fact that a solar year does not contain an integer number of lunar months is by including uncounted time in a period of the year that is not assigned to a named month. Some Coast Salish peoples used a calendar of this kind. For instance, the Chehalis began their count of lunar months from the arrival of spawning chinook salmon (in Gregorian calendar October), and counted 10 months, leaving an uncounted period until

3479-420: The first gēng day after the summer solstice. The first fu ( 初伏 ; chūfú ) is 10 days long. The mid- fu ( 中伏 ; zhōngfú ) is 10 or 20 days long. The last fu ( 末伏 ; mòfú ) is 10 days from the first gēng day after the beginning of autumn. The Shujiu cold days ( 數九 ; shǔjǐu ; 'counting to nine') are the 81 days after the winter solstice (divided into nine sets of nine days), and are considered

3550-538: The last year of the cycle and incrementing by 11 each year. Between the last year of one cycle and the first year of the next the increment is 12 – the saltus lunae ( Latin for 'leap of the moon') – which causes the epacts to repeat every 19 years. When the epact reaches 30 or higher, an intercalary month is added and 30 is subtracted. The Metonic cycle states that 7 of 19 years will contain an additional intercalary month and those years are numbered: 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17 and 19. Both

3621-467: The location of Purple Mountain Observatory , with longitude of 120°E. An epoch is a point in time chosen as the origin of a particular calendar era , thus serving as a reference point from which subsequent time or dates are measured. The use of epochs in Chinese calendar system allow for a chronological starting point from whence to begin point continuously numbering subsequent dates. Various epochs have been used. Similarly, nomenclature similar to that of

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3692-472: The lunar month was first described in the Tang dynasty Wùyín Yuán Calendar ( 戊寅元曆 ; 戊寅元历 ; 'earth tiger epoch calendar'). The Yuan dynasty Shòushí calendar ( 授時曆 ; 授时历 ; 'season granting calendar') used spherical trigonometry to find the length of the tropical year . The calendar had a 365.2425-day year, identical to the Gregorian calendar . Although the Chinese calendar lost its place as

3763-495: The mid-climate to which they were closest, and a month without a mid-climate was an intercalary month. The Taichu calendar established a framework for traditional calendars, with later calendars adding to the basic formula. The Dàmíng Calendar ( 大明曆 ; 大明历 ; 'brightest calendar'), created in the Northern and Southern Dynasties by Zu Chongzhi (429 CE – 500 CE), introduced the equinoxes. The use of syzygy to determine

3834-521: The mid-climate-term rule to "decide the month in sequence, except the intercalary month." The present traditional calendar follows the Shíxiàn calendar, except: To optimize the Chinese calendar, astronomers have proposed a number of changes. Gao Pingzi ( 高平子 ; 1888–1970), a Chinese astronomer who co-founded the Purple Mountain Observatory , proposed that month numbers be calculated before the new moon and solar terms to be rounded to

3905-547: The month names. Every month is also associated with one of the twelve Earthly Branches . The Chinese calendar has been a development involving much observation and calculation of the apparent movements of the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars, as observed from Earth. Many Chinese astronomers have contributed to the development of the Chinese calendar. Many were of the scholarly or shi class ( Chinese : 士 ; pinyin : shì ), including writers of history, such as Sima Qian . Notable Chinese astronomers who have contributed to

3976-842: The next chinook salmon run . The following is a list of lunisolar calendars sorted by family. Holidays in China (disambiguation) (Redirected from Holidays in China (disambiguation) ) Holidays in China may refer to: Traditional Chinese holidays Public holidays in China Public holidays in Taiwan Public holidays in Hong Kong Public holidays in Macau See also [ edit ] Category:Public holidays in China Topics referred to by

4047-426: The order in time. As its meaning became complex, the modern dedicated character ( 曆 ) was created to represent the meaning of calendar. Maintaining the correctness of calendars was an important task to maintain the authority of rulers, being perceived as a way to measure the ability of a ruler. For example, someone seen as a competent ruler would foresee the coming of seasons and prepare accordingly. This understanding

4118-489: The origin of some variant calendars used in other neighboring countries, such as Vietnam and Korea. The traditional calendar calendars used the sexagenary cycle-based ganzhi system's mathematically repeating cycles of Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches . Together with astronomical, horological, and phenological observations, definitions, measurements, and predictions of years, months, and days were refined. Astronomical phenomena and calculations emphasized especially

4189-413: The planets and the constellations (or mansions) of asterisms along the ecliptic. Many Chinese holidays and other areas both in ancient and modern times have been determined by the traditional lunisolar calendar or considerations based upon the lunisolar calendar; and, which now are generally combined with more modern calendar considerations. The traditions of the lunisolar calendar remain very popular and

4260-559: The political, and the resulting disparities between different calendars is significantly notable. Various similar calendar systems are also known from various regions or ethnic groups of Central Asia , South Asia , and other ethnic regions. Indeed, the Chinese calendar has influenced and been influenced by most parts of the world these days. One particularly popular feature is the Chinese zodiac . The Chinese calendar and horology includes many multifaceted methods of computing years, eras, months, days and hours (with modern horology even splitting

4331-440: The production process. Historical variations of the lunisolar calendar are features of the Chinese calendar system. The topic of the Chinese calendar includes various traditional types of the Chinese calendar. As is generally the case with calendar systems, the Chinese calendars tend to focus on basic calendar functions, such as the identification of years, months, and days according to astronomical phenomena and calculations, with

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4402-405: The reign of the Yellow Emperor at 2698 BCE and omits his predecessors Fuxi and Shennong as "too legendary to include". Publications began using the estimated birth date of the Yellow Emperor as the first year of the Han calendar in 1903, with newspapers and magazines proposing different dates. Jiangsu province counted 1905 as the year 4396 (using a year 1 of 2491 BCE, and implying that 2024 CE

4473-431: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Holidays in China . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Holidays_in_China&oldid=1130852751 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description

4544-402: The seconds into very tiny sub-units using atomic methods). Epochs are one of the important features of calendar systems. An epoch is a particular point in time at which a calendar system may use as its initial time reference, allowing for the consecutive numbering of years from a chosen starting year, date, or time. In the Chinese calendar system, examples include the inauguration of Huangdi or

4615-415: The sun move in the solar system relatively to each other. A purely solar calendar may be useful in planning times for agricultural activities such as planting and harvesting. Solar calendars tend to use astronomically observable points of reference such as equinoxes and solstices, events which may be approximately predicted using fundamental methods of observation and basic mathematical analysis. The topic of

4686-468: The tropical year. The 10 Heavenly Stems and 12 Earthly Branches were used to mark days. A third version is the balanced calendar ( 調曆 ; 调历 ). A year was 365.25 days, and a month was 29.5 days. After every 16th month, a half-month was intercalated. According to oracle bone records, the Shang dynasty calendar ( c.  1600  – c.  1046 BCE) was a balanced calendar with 12 to 14 months in

4757-535: The twelve animals of the Chinese Zodiac in relation to months and years. The traditional calendar used the sexagenary cycle-based ganzhi system's mathematically repeating cycles of Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches . Together with astronomical, horological, and phenologic observations, definitions, measurements, and predictions of years, months, and days were refined to an accurate standard. Astronomical phenomena and calculations emphasized especially

4828-429: Was 時憲曆 . A ruler would issue an almanac before the commencement of each year. There were private almanac issuers, usually illegal, when a ruler lost his control to some territories. Various modern Chinese calendar names resulted from the struggle between the introduction of Gregorian calendar by government and the preservation of customs by the public in the era of Republic of China . The government wanted to abolish

4899-539: Was also relevant in predicting abnormalities of the Earth and celestial bodies , such as lunar and solar eclipses . The significant relationship between authority and timekeeping helps to explain why there are 102 calendars in Chinese history, trying to predict the correct courses of sun, moon and stars, and marking good time and bad time. Each calendar is named as XX曆 and recorded in a dedicated calendar section in history books of different eras. The last one in imperial era

4970-582: Was developed between 771 BCE and 476 BCE, during the Spring and Autumn period of the Eastern Zhou dynasty. Solar calendars were used before the Zhou dynasty period, along with the basic sexagenary system. One version of the solar calendar is the five-elements calendar ( 五行曆 ; 五行历 ), which derives from the Wu Xing . A 365-day year was divided into five phases of 73 days, with each phase corresponding to

5041-532: Was developed. During the late Ming dynasty , the Chinese Emperor appointed Xu Guangqi in 1629 to be the leader of the ShiXian calendar reform. Assisted by Jesuits, he translated Western astronomical works and introduced new concepts, such as those of Nicolaus Copernicus , Johannes Kepler , Galileo Galilei , and Tycho Brahe ; however, the new calendar was not released before the end of the dynasty. In

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