The Chinese calendar is lunisolar, incorporating elements of a lunar calendar with those of a solar calendar. It is not exclusive to China, but followed by many other Asian cultures. It is often referred to as the Chinese calendar because it was first perfected by the Chinese around 500 BCE . In most of East Asia today, the Gregorian calendar is used for day to day activities, but the Chinese calendar is still used for marking traditional East Asian holidays such as the Chinese New Year (or Spring Festival ( 春節 ), not to be confused with Lunar New Year, which is the beginning for several lunisolar calendars), the Duan Wu festival, and the Mid-Autumn Festival, and in astrology, such as choosing the most auspicious date for a wedding or the opening of a building. Because each month follows one cycle of the moon, it is also used to determine the phases of the moon.
In China, the traditional calendar is often referred to as "the Xia Calendar" (simplified Chinese: 夏历 ; traditional Chinese: 夏曆 ; pinyin: xiàlì), following a comment in the Shiji which states that under the Xia Dynasty, the year began on the second new moon after the winter solstice. (At times under some other dynasties in ancient China, the year might begin on the first or third new moon after the winter solstice.) It is also known as the " agricultural calendar " (simplified Chinese: 农历 ; traditional Chinese: 農曆 ; pinyin: nónglì) while the Gregorian calendar is known as the " common calendar " (simplified Chinese: 公历 ; traditional Chinese: 公曆 ; pinyin: gōnglì). Another name for the Chinese calendar is the "Yin Calendar" (simplified Chinese: 阴历 ; traditional Chinese: 陰曆 ; pinyin: yīnlì) in reference to the lunar aspect of the calendar, whereas the Gregorian calendar is the "Yang Calendar" (simplified Chinese: 阳历 ; traditional Chinese: 陽曆 ; pinyin: yánglì) in reference to its solar properties. The Chinese calendar was also called the "old calendar" (simplified Chinese: 旧历 ; traditional Chinese: 舊曆 ; pinyin: jiùlì) after the "new calendar" (simplified Chinese: 新历 ; traditional Chinese: 新曆 ; pinyin: xīnlì), i.e. the Gregorian calendar, was adopted as the official calendar. Since the time of Emperor Wu of Han, starting the new year on the second new moon after winter solstice has been the norm for more than two thousand years.
The year 2009 in the Chinese calendar is the Year of the Ox. It lasts from January 26, 2009 to February 14, 2010. According to traditional beliefs, some form of the calendar has been in use for almost five millennia. Based on archaeological evidence some form of it has been in use for three and a half millennia. It is reckoned in the seldom-used continuously numbered system as 4705, 4706, or 4645 (depending on the epoch used).
History
Early history
The earliest evidence of the Chinese calendar is found on oracle bones of the Shang dynasty (late second millennium BCE), which seem to describe a lunisolar year of twelve months, with a possible intercalary thirteenth, or even fourteenth, added empirically to prevent calendar drift . The Sexagenary cycle for recording days was already in use. Tradition holds that, in that era, the year began on the first new moon after the winter solstice.
Early Eastern Zhou texts, such as the Spring and Autumn Annals , provide better understanding of the calendars used in the Zhou dynasty. One year usually had 12 months, which were alternately 29 and 30 days long (with an additional day added from time to time, to catch up with "drifts" between the calendar and the actual moon cycle), and intercalary months were added in an arbitrary fashion at the end of the year.
These arbitrary rules on day and month intercalation caused the calendars of each state to be slightly different, at times. Thus, texts like the Annals will often state whether the calendar they use (the calendar of Lu) is in phase with the Royal calendar (used by the Zhou kings).
Although tradition holds that in the Zhou, the year began on the new moon which preceded the winter solstice, the Spring and Autumn Annals seem to indicate that (in Lu at least) the Yin calendar (the calendar used in Shang dynasty, with years beginning on the first new moon after the winter solstice) was in use until the middle of the 7th century, and that the beginning of the year was shifted back one month around 650 BC.
By the beginning of the Warring States, progress in astronomy and mathematics allowed the creation of calculated calendars (where intercalary months and days are set by a rule, and not arbitrarily). 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 (the same as the 1st century BCE Julian Calendar of Rome), along with a 19-year (235-month) Rule Cycle, known in the West as the Metonic cycle. The year began on the new moon preceding the winter solstice, and intercalary months were inserted at the end of the year.
In 256 BCE, as the last Zhou king ceded his territory to Qin, a new calendar (the Qin calendar) began to be used. It followed the same principles as the Sifen calendar, except the year began one month before (the second new moon before the winter solstice, which now fell in the second month of the year). The Qin calendar was used during the Qin dynasty, and in the beginning of the Western Han dynasty.
Taichu calendar
The Emperor Wu of the Western Han dynasty introduced reforms that have governed the Chinese calendar ever since. His Tàichū ( 太初 , "Grand Inception") calendar of 104 BCE had a year with the winter solstice in the eleventh month and designated as intercalary any calendar month (a month of 29 or 30 whole days) during which the sun does not pass a principal term (that is, remained within the same sign of the zodiac throughout). Because the sun's mean motion was used to calculate the jiéqì (simplified Chinese: 节气 ; traditional Chinese: 節氣 ) (or seasonal markings) until 1645, this intercalary month was equally likely to occur after any month of the year. The conjunction of the sun and moon (the astronomical new moon) was calculated using the mean motions of both the sun and moon until 619, the second year of the Tang dynasty, when chronologists began to use true motions modeled using two offset opposing parabolas (with small linear and cubic components). Unfortunately, the parabolas did not meet smoothly at the mean motion, but met with a discontinuity or jump.
The Taichu Calendar of 104 BCE set the tropical year at 365
days and the lunar month at 29
days.
True sun and moon
With the introduction of European astronomy into China via the Jesuits, the motions of both the sun and moon began to be calculated with sinusoids in the 1645 Shíxiàn calendar ( 時憲書 , Book of the Conformity of Time) 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.
Gregorian reform
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. The status of the Gregorian calendar was unclear between 1916 and 1921 while China was controlled by several competing warlords each supported by foreign colonial powers. From about 1921 until 1928 warlords continued to fight over northern China, but the Kuomintang or Nationalist government controlled southern China and used the Gregorian calendar. After the Kuomintang reconstituted the Republic of China October 10, 1928, the Gregorian calendar was officially adopted, effective January 1, 1929. The Peoples Republic of China has continued to use the Gregorian calendar since 1949.
Standard time
Before 1929, the traditional calendar was calculated by the Central Observatory (formerly the Imperial Observatory) in Beijing using Beijing local time at a longitude of 116°25'E (GMT+7h 45m 40s) . From 1929 to 1949 it was calculated by the Institute of Astronomy in Nanjing and since 1949 by the Purple Mountain Observatory outside of Nanjing using Chinese standard time at a longitude of 120°E (GMT+8h). This shifted the midnight marking the beginning of each day in both the traditional and Gregorian calendars by plus 14 minutes 20 seconds. This shift meant that any dark moon which formerly occurred just before midnight Beijing
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