Chinese calendar

The Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar formed by combining a purely lunar calendar with a solar calendar. In modern times Chinese usually use the Gregorian Calendar for most day to day activities, but the Chinese calendar is still used for the dating of traditional holidays such as Chinese New Year (Spring Festival) and the Mid-Autumn Festival and in astrology, including choosing the most auspicious date for a wedding or the grand opening of a building. The primary use in day to day activities is for determining the phase of the moon, which is important for farmers and is possible because each day in the calendar corresponds to a particular phase of the month. Other traditional east Asian calendars are similar to if not identical to the Chinese calendar: the Korean calendar is identical, the Vietnamese calendar substitutes the cat for the rabbit in the twelve animals,

History

Beginnings

The legendary beginning of the Chinese calendar developed during the first millennium BCE. The legend states that the first Chinese calendar was invented by the first legendary emperor, Huangdi or the Yellow Emperor, whose reign was assigned to 2698-2599 BCE. The fourth legendary emperor, Emperor Yao, added the intercalary month. The 60-year stem-branch (干支 gānzhī) cycle was first assigned to years during the first century BCE. Giving Huangdi some maturity, the first year of the first cycle was assigned to 2637 BCE according to Herbert A. Giles, A Chinese-English Dictionary (1912), and all other Western authors during the late Qing dynasty. Thus since 1984 the current cycle has been 78. However, some modern authors assign the first year of the first cycle to 2697 BCE while Huangdi was still immature, saying we are now in cycle 79. These two epochs give rise to two continuous counts of years, causing the 'Chinese' years 4642 or 4702 to begin in early 2005.

Related Topics:
First millennium BCE - Yellow Emperor - Emperor Yao - First century BCE - Qing dynasty

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However, continuously numbered sexagesimal cycles and the years based on them were inventions of Western chronologists—the Chinese themselves did not use either. But they did use unnumbered cycles, albeit in a subservient role to the reign-period year declared by the Emperor of China. Indeed, not using the emperor's reign-period was tantamount to treason punishable by death. But the Boxer rebellion of 1900 left the de facto ruler of China, the Empress Dowager Cixi, weakened and vulnerable to a challenge from Chinese Republicans, who intentionally used a continuous count of years to delegitimize the Qing Dynasty by refusing to use its years. Although republican newspapers used more than one epoch, that selected by Sun Yat-sen, 2698 BCE, was adopted by most overseas Chinese communities outside southeast Asia like San Francisco's Chinatown, causing their year 4703 to begin in early 2005. Many chronologists, being unfamiliar with its history, think that 2698 BCE is an error for the 2697 BCE epoch obtained from sexagesimal cycles, whereas it is actually the only epoch actually used by some Chinese, albeit a minority (most Chinese don't use any continuous count of years from a legendary epoch).

Related Topics:
Reign-period year - Emperor of China - Boxer rebellion - 1900 - Empress Dowager Cixi - Qing Dynasty - Sun Yat-sen - Overseas Chinese - San Francisco's Chinatown

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Early History

The earliest archaeological evidence of the Chinese calendar appears on oracle bones of the late second millennium BCE Shang dynasty. They show a 12-month lunisolar year having an occasional thirteenth month, and even a fourteenth month. Because Chinese dates are on firm ground beginning in 841 BCE, the calendar of the early Zhou dynasty is known to have used arbitrary intercalations. The first month of its year was near the winter solstice and its intercalary month was after the twelfth month. The sìfēn 四分 (quarter remainder) calendar, which began about 484 BCE, was the first calculated Chinese calendar, so named because it used a solar year of 365¼ days, along with a 19-year = 235-month Rule Cycle, known in the West as the Metonic cycle. The winter solstice was in its first month and its intercalary month was inserted after the twelfth month. Beginning in 256 BCE with the Qin kingdom, which would later become the Qin dynasty, the intercalary month was an extra ninth month at the end of a year that began with the tenth month, now placing the winter solstice in the eleventh month. This year continued to be used during the first half of the Western Han Dynasty.

Related Topics:
Oracle bones - Second millennium BCE - Shang dynasty - 841 BCE - Zhou dynasty - Winter solstice - 484 BCE - Metonic cycle - 256 BCE - Qin dynasty

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The "No Principal Term" Rule

The True Sun and Moon

With the introduction of Western astronomy into China via the Jesuits, the motions of both the sun and moon began to use sinusoids in the 1645 Shíxiàn (Constant Conformity) calendar of the Qing dynasty, made by the Jesuit Adam Schall. The true motion of the sun was now used to calculate the jiéqì, which caused the intercalary month to often occur after the second through the ninth months, but rarely after the tenth through first months. A few autumn-winter periods have one or two calendar months where the sun enters two signs of the zodiac, interspersed with two or three calendar months where the sun stays within one sign.

Related Topics:
Jesuits - Sinusoids - 1645 - Qing dynasty - Adam Schall - Jiéqì

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The Gregorian Reform and the 1929 time change

The Gregorian calendar was adopted by the nascent Republic of China effective January 1, 1912 for official business, but the general populace continued to use the traditional calendar of the Qing Dynasty. The status of the Gregorian calendar between about 1916 and 1921 while China was controlled by several competing warlords is unknown. From about 1921 until 1928 warlords continued to control northern China, but the Kuomintang controlled southern China and probably used the Gregorian calendar. After the Kuomintang declared a reconstituted Republic of China October 10, 1928, they decreed that effective 1 January, 1929, everyone must use the Gregorian calendar. They also decreed that effective 1 January 1929, all of China must use the coastal time zone that had been used by all European treaty ports along the Chinese coast since 1904. This changed the beginning of each calendar day, for both the traditional and Gregorian calendars, by +14.3 minutes from Beijing midnight to midnight at the longitude 120° east of Greenwich.

Related Topics:
Gregorian calendar - Republic of China - January 1 - 1912 - Warlord - Kuomintang - October 10 - 1928 - 1 January - 1929 - Treaty ports - 1904 - Beijing - Midnight - Longitude - Greenwich

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This caused some discrepancies, such as with the 1978 Mid-Autumn Festival. There was a new moon on September 3, 1978, at 00:07, Chinese Standard Timehttp://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/phase/phases.1901-2000.html. Using the old Beijing timezone, the New Moon occurred at 23:53 on the 2nd, so the eighth month began on a different day in the calendars. Hong Kong people (using the traditional calendar) celebrated the Festival on 16 September, but those in China celebrated on 17 September. http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/calendar/cal.pdf (see page 18)

Related Topics:
1978 - Mid-Autumn Festival - September 3 - Chinese Standard Time - Hong Kong - 16 September - 17 September

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The Kuomintang may have begun to number the years of their republic in 1929, regarding 1912 as year 1. When the Communists gained control of mainland China October 1, 1949, they simply continued using the Gregorian calendar, but now numbered the years in the Western manner, beginning with 1949. On both mainland China and Taiwan, the months of the Gregorian calendar are numbered 1-12 just like the months of the traditional calendar.

Related Topics:
Communists - Mainland China - October 1 - 1949 - Taiwan

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