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,

Jieqi

Chinese months follow the phases of the moon. The solar-based agricultural calendar is made up of twenty-four points called jiéqì 節氣. They are essentially seasonal markers to help farmers decide when to plant or harvest crops, as the lunisolar calendar is for obvious reasons unreliable in this respect. The term Jiéqì is usually translated as "Solar Terms" (lit. Nodes of Weather). Each is the instant when the sun reaches one of twenty-four equally spaced points along the ecliptic, including the solstices and equinoxes, positioned at fifteen degree intervals. In the table below, these measures are given in the standard astronomical convention of ecliptic longitude, zero degrees being positioned at the vernal equinox point. Because the calculation is solar-based, these jiéqì fall around the same date every year in solar calendars such as the Gregorian Calendar, but do not form any obvious pattern in the Chinese calendar. The dates below are approximate and may vary slightly from year to year due to the intercalary rules of the Gregorian calendar. Jiéqì are published each year in farmers' almanacs. Chinese New Year is usually the new moon day closest to lìchūn. Each calendar month under the heading "M" contains the designated jiéqì called a principle term, which is an entry into a sign of the zodiac, also known as a cusp. Here term has the archaic meaning of a limit, not a duration. In Chinese astronomy, seasons are centered on the solstices and equinoxes, whereas in the standard Western definition, they begin at the solstices and equinoxes. Thus the term Beginning of Spring and the related Spring Festival fall in February, when it is still very chilly in temperate latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere.

Related Topics:
Jiéqì - Solar calendar - Gregorian Calendar - Almanac - Chinese New Year - New moon

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Note: The third jiéqì was originally called 啓蟄 (qǐzhé) but renamed to 驚蟄 (jīngzhé) in the era of the Emperor Jing of Han (漢景帝) to avoid writing his given name 啓 (also written as 啟, a variant of 啓).

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The "Song of Solar Terms" (節氣歌; pinyin: jiéqìgē) is used to ease the memorization of jiéqì:

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:春雨驚春清穀天 chūn yǔ jīng chūn qīng gǔtiān,

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:夏滿芒夏暑相連 xià mǎn máng xià shǔ xiānglián,

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:秋處露秋寒霜降 qiū chù lù qiū hán shuāng xiáng,

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:冬雪雪冬小大寒 dōng xuě xuě dōng xiǎo dà hán.

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