Calendar

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A calendar is a system of organizing

days for social, religious, commercial or
administrative purposes. This is done by
giving names to periods of time, typically
days, weeks, months and years. A date is
the designation of a single, specific day
within such a system. A calendar is also
a physical record (often paper) of such a
system. A calendar can also mean a list
of planned events, such as a court
calendar or a partly or fully chronological
list of documents, such as a calendar of
wills.

Periods in a calendar (such as years and

months) are usually, though not
necessarily, synchronised with the cycle
of the sun or the moon. The most
common type of pre-modern calendar
was the lunisolar calendar, a lunar
calendar that occasionally adds one
intercalary month to remain
synchronised with the solar year over the
long term.

The term calendar is taken from

calendae, the term for the first day of the
month in the Roman calendar, related to
the verb calare "to call out", referring to
the "calling" of the new moon when it
was first seen.[1] Latin calendarium
meant "account book, register" (as
accounts were settled and debts were
collected on the calends of each month).
The Latin term was adopted in Old
French as calendier and from there in
Middle English as calender by the 13th
century (the spelling calendar is early
modern).
History

Equinox seen from the astronomic calendar of Pizzo

Vento at Fondachelli Fantina, Sicily

The course of the sun and the moon are

the most salient natural, regularly
recurring events useful for timekeeping,
thus in pre-modern societies worldwide
lunation and the year were most
commonly used as time units.
Nevertheless, the Roman calendar
contained remnants of a very ancient
pre-Etruscan 10-month solar year.[2] The
first recorded physical calendars,
dependent on the development of writing
in the Ancient Near East, are the Bronze
Age Egyptian and Sumerian calendars.[3]

A large number of Ancient Near East

calendar systems based on the
Babylonian calendar date from the Iron
Age, among them the calendar system of
the Persian Empire, which in turn gave
rise to the Zoroastrian calendar and the
Hebrew calendar.[4]

A great number of Hellenic calendars

developed in Classical Greece, and in the
Hellenistic period gave rise to both the
ancient Roman calendar and to various
Hindu calendars.[5]

Calendars in antiquity were lunisolar,

depending on the introduction of
intercalary months to align the solar and
the lunar years. This was mostly based
on observation, but there may have been
early attempts to model the pattern of
intercalation algorithmically, as
evidenced in the fragmentary 2nd-
century Coligny calendar.

The Roman calendar was reformed by

Julius Caesar in 45 BC. The Julian
calendar was no longer dependent on the
observation of the new moon but simply
followed an algorithm of introducing a
leap day every four years. This created a
dissociation of the calendar month from
the lunation.

The Islamic calendar is based on the

prohibition of intercalation (nasi') by
Muhammad, in Islamic tradition dated to
a sermon held on 9 Dhu al-Hijjah AH 10
(Julian date: 6 March 632). This resulted
in an observation-based lunar calendar
that shifts relative to the seasons of the
solar year.

Modern reforms

The first calendar reform of the early

modern era was the Gregorian calendar,
introduced in 1582 based on the
observation of a long-term shift between
the Julian calendar and the solar year.

There have been a number of modern

proposals for reform of the calendar,
such as the World Calendar, International
Fixed Calendar, Holocene calendar, and,
recently, the Hanke-Henry Permanent
Calendar. Such ideas are mooted from
time to time but have failed to gain
traction because of the loss of continuity,
massive upheaval in implementation, and
religious objections.

Calendar systems
A full calendar system has a different
calendar date for every day. Thus the
week cycle is by itself not a full calendar
system; neither is a system to name the
days within a year without a system for
identifying the years.

The simplest calendar system just

counts time periods from a reference
date. This applies for the Julian day or
Unix Time. Virtually the only possible
variation is using a different reference
date, in particular, one less distant in the
past to make the numbers smaller.
Computations in these systems are just a
matter of addition and subtraction.

Other calendars have one (or multiple)

larger units of time.
Calendars that contain one level of
cycles:

week and weekday – this system

(without year, the week number keeps
on increasing) is not very common
year and ordinal date within the year,
e.g., the ISO 8601 ordinal date system

Calendars with two levels of cycles:

year, month, and day – most systems,

including the Gregorian calendar (and
its very similar predecessor, the Julian
calendar), the Islamic calendar, the
Solar Hijri calendar and the Hebrew
calendar
 year, week, and weekday – e.g., the ISO
week date

Cycles can be synchronized with periodic

phenomena:

Sun and Moon, Schedel's Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493

Lunar calendars are synchronized to

the motion of the Moon (lunar phases);
an example is the Islamic calendar.
Solar calendars are based on
perceived seasonal changes
 synchronized to the apparent motion
of the Sun; an example is the Persian
calendar.
Lunisolar calendars are based on a
combination of both solar and lunar
reckonings; examples include the
traditional calendar of China, the Hindu
calendar in India, and the Hebrew
calendar.
The week cycle is an example of one
that is not synchronized to any external
phenomenon (although it may have
been derived from lunar phases,
beginning anew every month).

Very commonly a calendar includes more

than one type of cycle, or has both cyclic
and non-cyclic elements.

Most calendars incorporate more

complex cycles. For example, the vast
majority of them track years, months,
weeks and days. The seven-day week is
practically universal, though its use
varies. It has run uninterrupted for
millennia.[6]

Solar calendars

Solar calendars assign a date to each

solar day. A day may consist of the
period between sunrise and sunset, with
a following period of night, or it may be a
period between successive events such
as two sunsets. The length of the interval
between two such successive events
may be allowed to vary slightly during the
year, or it may be averaged into a mean
solar day. Other types of calendar may
also use a solar day.

Lunar calendars

Not all calendars use the solar year as a

unit. A lunar calendar is one in which
days are numbered within each lunar
phase cycle. Because the length of the
lunar month is not an even fraction of the
length of the tropical year, a purely lunar
calendar quickly drifts against the
seasons, which do not vary much near
the equator. It does, however, stay
constant with respect to other
phenomena, notably tides. An example is
the Islamic calendar. Alexander
Marshack, in a controversial reading,[7]
believed that marks on a bone baton (c.
25,000 BC) represented a lunar calendar.
Other marked bones may also represent
lunar calendars. Similarly, Michael
Rappenglueck believes that marks on a
15,000-year-old cave painting represent a
lunar calendar.[8]

Lunisolar calendars

A lunisolar calendar is a lunar calendar

that compensates by adding an extra
month as needed to realign the months
with the seasons. An example is the
Hebrew calendar which uses a 19-year
cycle.

Calendar subdivisions
Nearly all calendar systems group
consecutive days into "months" and also
into "years". In a solar calendar a year
approximates Earth's tropical year (that
is, the time it takes for a complete cycle
of seasons), traditionally used to
facilitate the planning of agricultural
activities. In a lunar calendar, the month
approximates the cycle of the moon
phase. Consecutive days may be
grouped into other periods such as the
week.

Because the number of days in the

tropical year is not a whole number, a
solar calendar must have a different
number of days in different years. This
may be handled, for example, by adding
an extra day in leap years. The same
applies to months in a lunar calendar and
also the number of months in a year in a
lunisolar calendar. This is generally
known as intercalation. Even if a calendar
is solar, but not lunar, the year cannot be
divided entirely into months that never
vary in length.
Cultures may define other units of time,
such as the week, for the purpose of
scheduling regular activities that do not
easily coincide with months or years.
Many cultures use different baselines for
their calendars' starting years. For
example, the year in Japan is based on
the reign of the current emperor: 2006
was Year 18 of the Emperor Akihito.

Other calendar types

Arithmetic and astronomical
calendars
 

Calendar of the Qahal, 5591 (1831)

An astronomical calendar is based on

ongoing observation; examples are the
religious Islamic calendar and the old
religious Jewish calendar in the time of
the Second Temple. Such a calendar is
also referred to as an observation-based
calendar. The advantage of such a
calendar is that it is perfectly and
perpetually accurate. The disadvantage
is that working out when a particular date
would occur is difficult.

An arithmetic calendar is one that is

based on a strict set of rules; an example
is the current Jewish calendar. Such a
calendar is also referred to as a rule-
based calendar. The advantage of such a
calendar is the ease of calculating when
a particular date occurs. The
disadvantage is imperfect accuracy.
Furthermore, even if the calendar is very
accurate, its accuracy diminishes slowly
over time, owing to changes in Earth's
rotation. This limits the lifetime of an
accurate arithmetic calendar to a few
thousand years. After then, the rules
would need to be modified from
observations made since the invention of
the calendar.

Complete and incomplete

calendars

Calendars may be either complete or

incomplete. Complete calendars provide
a way of naming each consecutive day,
while incomplete calendars do not. The
early Roman calendar, which had no way
of designating the days of the winter
months other than to lump them together
as "winter", is an example of an
incomplete calendar, while the Gregorian
calendar is an example of a complete
calendar.

Calendars in use
The primary practical use of a calendar is
to identify days: to be informed about or
to agree on a future event and to record
an event that has happened. Days may
be significant for agricultural, civil,
religious or social reasons. For example,
a calendar provides a way to determine
when to start planting or harvesting,
which days are religious or civil holidays,
which days mark the beginning and end
of business accounting periods, and
which days have legal significance, such
as the day taxes are due or a contract
expires. Also a calendar may, by
identifying a day, provide other useful
information about the day such as its
season.

Calendars are also used to help people

manage their personal schedules, time
and activities, particularly when
individuals have numerous work, school,
and family commitments. People
frequently use multiple systems, and may
keep both a business and family
calendar to help prevent them from
overcommitting their time.

Calendars are also used as part of a

complete timekeeping system: date and
time of day together specify a moment in
time. In the modern world, timekeepers
can show time, date and weekday. Some
may also show lunar phase.

Gregorian calendar

The Gregorian calendar is the de facto

international standard, and is used
almost everywhere in the world for civil
purposes. It is a purely solar calendar,
with a cycle of leap days in a 400-year
cycle designed to keep the duration of
the year aligned with the solar year.

Each Gregorian year has either 365 or

366 days (the leap day being inserted as
29 February), amounting to an average
Gregorian year of 365.2425 days
(compared to a solar year of 365.2422
days). It was introduced in 1582 as a
refinement to the Julian calendar which
had been in use throughout the European
Middle Ages, amounting to a 0.002%
correction in the length of the year.

During the Early Modern period, however,

its adoption was mostly limited to
Roman Catholic nations, but by the 19th
century, it became widely adopted
worldwide for the sake of convenience in
international trade. The last European
country to adopt the reform was Greece,
in 1923.
The calendar epoch used by the
Gregorian calendar is inherited from the
medieval convention established by
Dionysius Exiguus and associated with
the Julian calendar. The year number is
variously given as AD (for Anno Domini)
or CE (for Common Era or, indeed,
Christian Era).

Religious calendars
 

A Hindu almanac (pancanga) for the year 1871/2

from Rajasthan (Library of Congress, Asian Division)

The most important use of pre-modern

calendars is keeping track of the
liturgical year and the observation of
religious feast days.
While the Gregorian calendar is itself
historically motivated in relation to the
calculation of the Easter date, it is now in
worldwide secular use as the de facto
standard. Alongside the use of the
Gregorian calendar for secular matters,
there remain a number of calendars in
use for religious purposes.

Eastern Christians, including the

Orthodox Church, use the Julian
calendar.

The Islamic calendar or Hijri calendar, is

a lunar calendar consisting of 12 lunar
months in a year of 354 or 355 days. It is
used to date events in most of the
Muslim countries (concurrently with the
Gregorian calendar), and used by
Muslims everywhere to determine the
proper day on which to celebrate Islamic
holy days and festivals. Its epoch is the
Hijra (corresponding to AD 622) With an
annual drift of 11 or 12 days, the
seasonal relation is repeated
approximately each 33 Islamic years.

Various Hindu calendars remain in use in

the Indian subcontinent, including the
Nepali calendar, Bengali calendar,
Malayalam calendar, Tamil calendar,
Vikrama Samvat used in Northern India,
and Shalivahana calendar in the Deccan
states.
The Buddhist calendar and the traditional
lunisolar calendars of Cambodia, Laos,
Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand are
also based on an older version of the
Hindu calendar.

Most of the Hindu calendars are inherited

from a system first enunciated in
Vedanga Jyotisha of Lagadha,
standardized in the Sūrya Siddhānta and
subsequently reformed by astronomers
such as Āryabhaṭa (AD 499),
Varāhamihira (6th century) and Bhāskara
II (12th century).

The Hebrew calendar is used by Jews

worldwide for religious and cultural
affairs, also influences civil matters in
Israel (such as national holidays) and can
be used there for business dealings
(such as for the dating of cheques).

Bahá'ís worldwide use the Bahá'í

calendar.

National calendars

The Chinese, Hebrew, Hindu, and Julian

calendars are widely used for religious
and social purposes.

The Iranian (Persian) calendar is used in

Iran and some parts of Afghanistan. The
Ethiopian calendar or Ethiopic calendar is
the principal calendar used in Ethiopia
and Eritrea, with the Oromo calendar also
in use in some areas. In neighboring
Somalia, the Somali calendar co-exists
alongside the Gregorian and Islamic
calendars. In Thailand, where the Thai
solar calendar is used, the months and
days have adopted the western standard,
although the years are still based on the
traditional Buddhist calendar.

Fiscal calendars

The Payment of the Tithes (The tax-collector), also

known as Village Lawyer, by Pieter Brueghel the
Younger or workshop
A fiscal calendar generally means the
accounting year of a government or a
business. It is used for budgeting,
keeping accounts and taxation. It is a set
of 12 months that may start at any date
in a year. The US government's fiscal year
starts on 1 October and ends on 30
September. The government of India's
fiscal year starts on 1 April and ends on
31 March. Small traditional businesses in
India start the fiscal year on Diwali
festival and end the day before the next
year's Diwali festival.

In accounting (and particularly

accounting software), a fiscal calendar
(such as a 4/4/5 calendar) fixes each
month at a specific number of weeks to
facilitate comparisons from month to
month and year to year. January always
has exactly 4 weeks (Sunday through
Saturday), February has 4 weeks, March
has 5 weeks, etc. Note that this calendar
will normally need to add a 53rd week to
every 5th or 6th year, which might be
added to December or might not be,
depending on how the organization uses
those dates. There exists an international
standard way to do this (the ISO week).
The ISO week starts on a Monday, and
ends on a Sunday. Week 1 is always the
week that contains 4 January in the
Gregorian calendar.
Formats

A calendar from the Petaluma and Santa Rosa

Railroad

The term calendar applies not only to a

given scheme of timekeeping but also to
a specific record or device displaying
such a scheme, for example an
appointment book in the form of a
pocket calendar (or personal organizer),
desktop calendar, a wall calendar, etc.

In a paper calendar one or two sheets

can show a single day, a week, a month,
or a year. If a sheet is for a single day, it
easily shows the date and the weekday. If
a sheet is for multiple days it shows a
conversion table to convert from
weekday to date and back. With a special
pointing device, or by crossing out past
days, it may indicate the current date and
weekday. This is the most common
usage of the word.

In the US Sunday is considered the first

day of the week and so appears on the
far left and Saturday the last day of the
week appearing on the far right. In Britain
the weekend may appear at the end of
the week so the first day is Monday and
the last day is Sunday. The US calendar
display is also used in Britain.

It is common to display the Gregorian

calendar in separate monthly grids of
seven columns (from Monday to Sunday,
or Sunday to Saturday depending on
which day is considered to start the
week – this varies according to country)
and five to six rows (or rarely, four rows
when the month of February contains 28
days beginning on the first day of the
week), with the day of the month
numbered in each cell, beginning with 1.
The sixth row is sometimes eliminated
by marking 23/30 and 24/31 together as
necessary.

When working with weeks rather than

months, a continuous format is
sometimes more convenient, where no
blank cells are inserted to ensure that the
first day of a new month begins on a
fresh row.

Calendaring software

Calendaring software provides users with

an electronic version of a calendar, and
may additionally provide an appointment
book, address book or contact list.
Calendaring is a standard feature of
many PDAs, EDAs, and smartphones.
The software may be a local package
designed for individual use (e.g.,
Lightning extension for Mozilla
Thunderbird, Microsoft Outlook without
Exchange Server, or Windows Calendar)
or may be a networked package that
allows for the sharing of information
between users (e.g., Mozilla Sunbird,
Windows Live Calendar, Google Calendar,
or Microsoft Outlook with Exchange
Server).

See also
List of calendars
Advent calendar
 Calendar reform
Calendrical calculation
Docket (court)
History of calendars
List of international common
standards
List of unofficial observances by date
Real-Time Clock (RTC), which underlies
the Calendar software on modern
computers.
Unit of time

References
Citations

1. New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary

2. "Religion in the Etruscan period" in
Roman religion in Encyclopædia
Britannica
3. citation needed
4. citation needed
5. citation needed
6. Zerubavel 1985.
7. James Elkins, Our beautiful, dry, and
distant texts (1998) 63ff.
8. "Oldest lunar calendar identified" . BBC
News. 2000-10-16. Retrieved 2013-03-14.

Sources

"calendar", American Heritage

Dictionary (5th ed.), 2017
Birashk, Ahmad (1993), A comparative
Calendar of the Iranian, Muslim Lunar,
and Christian Eras for Three Thousand
Years, Mazda Publishers, ISBN 978-
0939214952
Björnsson, Árni (1995) [1977], High
Days and Holidays in Iceland, Reykjavík:
Mál og menning, ISBN 978-
9979308027, OCLC 186511596
Dershowitz, Nachum; Reingold, Edward
M (1997), Calendrical Calculations ,
Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-
0521564748, archived from the
original on 17 October 2002 with
Online Calculator
Doggett, LE (1992), "Calendars" , in
Seidelmann, P. Kenneth, Explanatory
Supplement to the Astronomical
Almanac, University Science Books,
ISBN 978-0935702682, archived from
the original on 1 April 2004
Richards, EG (1998), Mapping Time, the
calendar and its history, Oxford
University Press, ISBN 978-
0198504139
Rose, Lynn E (1999), Sun, Moon, and
Sothis, Kronos Press, ISBN 978-
0917994159
Schuh, Dieter (1973), Untersuchungen
zur Geschichte der Tibetischen
Kalenderrechnung (in German),
 Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag,
OCLC 1150484
Spier, Arthur (1986), The
Comprehensive Hebrew Calendar,
Feldheim Publishers, ISBN 978-
0873063982
Zerubavel, Eviatar (1985), The Seven
Day Circle: The History and Meaning of
the Week, University of Chicago Press,
ISBN 978-0226981659

Further reading
Fraser, Julius Thomas (1987), Time,
the Familiar Stranger (illustrated ed.),
Amherst: Univ of Massachusetts
Press, ISBN 978-0870235764,
OCLC 15790499
 Whitrow, Gerald James (2003), What is
Time?, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
ISBN 978-0198607816,
OCLC 265440481
C.K, Raju (2003), The Eleven Pictures of
Time, SAGE Publications Pvt. Ltd,
ISBN 978-0761996248
C.K, Raju (1994), Time: Towards a
Consistent Theory, Springer, ISBN 978-
0792331032

External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related
to Calendars.

Look up calendar in Wiktionary, the free

dictionary.
  "Calendar". Encyclopedia Americana.
1920.
  "Calendar". Encyclopædia Britannica
(11th ed.). 1911.
Calendar FAQ
Invention of calendar in ancient times
an educational web site
Calendar Converter – including all
major civil, religious and technical
calendar systems
Date Converter , including ancient
calendars and Old-style religious
calendars
Date Gregorian (common) – Jewish
(Hebrew) Converter , including ancient
 Gregorian (common) – Jewish
(Hebrew) calendars

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