Chinese New Year and the Chinese calendar
Chinese New Year begins on the first day of the first lunar month in the Chinese calendar (see below) and ends with the 'Lantern Festival' on the 15th day.
On the first day of Chinese New Year, families visit the senior members of their extended family. Some invite a lion dance troupe to usher in the New Year and expel evil spirits. For example in Hong Kong, married family members give red packets containing cash to children and teenagers in the family. Fireworks and firecrackers are also very popular at this time.
Chinese legend tells of the Nián (年), a man-eating beast which came out once a year to prey on humans. Eventually people learnt to scare the Nián away with explosions, fireworks and the use of the colour red, giving rise to the traditional New Year celebrations.
Dates of Chinese New Year
- 23 January 2012 (Dragon)
- 10 February 2013 (Snake)
- 31 January 2014 (Horse)
- 19 February 2015 (Goat)
- 8 February 2016 (Monkey)
- 28 February 2017 (Rooster)
- 16 February 2018 (Dog)
The Chinese calendar
The Gregorian calendar is used in the Peoples’ Republic of China for administrative and commercial purposes but the traditional Chinese calendar, which is a luni-solar calendar, is used for religious purposes and for agriculture. Astronomical calculations for the Chinese calendar are based on Latitude 120º E.
The traditional Chinese calendar resembles the Hebrew calendar in having ordinary years with 12 months and 353, 354, or 355 days, and leap years with 13 months and 383, 384, or 385 days. Days are measured from midnight to midnight. The first day of the month is the date of the new Moon (not the first visible crescent used in the Islamic and Hebrew calendars). The tropical year is divided into 24 solar terms, each of which spans 15º of solar longitude, which are given names that refer to the seasons or weather.
The solar terms are arranged in pairs each consisting of a Sectional solar term (Jeiqi) and a Principal solar term (Zhongqi). Each pair covers 30° of solar longitude. In other words, principal terms divide the ecliptic into twelve 30° increments. The months of the Chinese calendar are numbered by the principal term that falls within it. The calendar is adjusted to ensure that the principal term for winter solstice always falls in month 11.
Rarely, a month has two principal terms, in which case the numbering of the months may have to be adjusted to ensure that principal term 11 (winter solstice) falls in the 11th month.
Leap years have 13 months. To determine if a year is a leap year the number of new Moons between the 11th month in one year and the 11th month in the following year are calculated. If there are 13 new Moons from the start of the 11th month in the first year to the start of the 11th month in the second year, a leap month must be inserted. In leap years, at least one month does not contain a principal term. The first such month is the leap month.
Principal terms in the Chinese calendar
| Principal term | Sun's longitude / º |
|---|---|
| 1 | 330 |
| 2 | 0 (vernal equinox) |
| 3 | 30 |
| 4 | 60 |
| 5 | 90 (summer solstice) |
| 6 | 120 |
| 7 | 150 |
| 8 | 180 (autumn equinox) |
| 9 | 210 |
| 10 | 240 |
| 11 | 270 (winter solstice) |
| 12 | 300 |
One of the problems of the traditional Chinese calendar is that it was developed on the assumption that the motion of the Sun along the ecliptic is uniform. Although the rules for keeping the calendar in synchrony with the seasons work most of the time, discrepancies can arise.
Unlike most other calendars, the Chinese calendar does not count years in an infinite sequence. Instead years have names that are repeated every 60 years, corresponding to five repeats of the Chinese zodiac cycle of 12 animals (in sequence they are: rat, ox, tiger, hare or rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, pig). This system for naming years has been in use for about the last 2000 years, but is traditionally extrapolated back to 2637 BCE when the calendar was supposed to have been invented. The current 60-year cycle started on 2 February 1984. However a counting system is also now in use which has year 1 as the first year of the Yellow Emperor in 2698 BCE. In this system 2005 is 2698 + 2005 = Chinese year 4703. 9 February 2005 was the start of the year of the Rooster.
Written by Alan Longstaff, 2005
The information about the Chinese calendar is taken from the Museum's e-book Calendars from around the world (PDF, 389KB)
