Year 2000 AD is a leap year (therefore, 29 days hath this February),
but this year on the Lunar calendar is NOT a leap year.
The last lunar leap year was in 1998.
The Lunar year is divided into twelve months of 29½ days each.
Every two and a half years, an extra month, known as an intercalary
month is added to adjust the calendar.
The intercalary month is consecutively interposed from the 2nd to the
11th months of the lunar year.
The addition of this month every third year produces the Lunar Leap Year.
According to one account, the (commonly used) Gregorian calendar leap
years occur in every year divisible by 4, except those that are divisible
by 100 but not 400.
Another account describes the three rules which are used to determine
Leap years as follows:
1.Years divisible by four are leap years, unless ...
2.Years are also divisible by 100 in which case they are NOT leap years,
except when ...
3.Years are divisible by 400.
Sigh ... are you confused yet? I am. :>
My research tells me:
1900 was not a leap year.
1996 was a leap year.
2000 is a leap year.
For more on leap years, check this site link.
According to www.mandarintools.com:
"Under the Gregorian calendar, a solar year is divided up into 12 months
of 30 or 31 days (with February having 28 or 29 depending on if the year
is a leap year). This gives a year of 365 or 366 days.
However, the true period of the Earth's revolution around the sun
(measured from vernal equinox to vernal equinox) is 365 days, 5 hours,
48 minutes and 46 seconds.
Over time, this discrepancy would cause the official calendar to be out
of sync with various celestial events such as the equinoxes and solstices.
To rectify this, a series of leap years were added into the calendar.
On a leap year, an extra day is added to the end of February -- February 29th.
Leap years keep the calendar in sync with the solar year to an accuracy
of about 1 day in 2,500 years.
The Chinese agricultural calendar is also partially solar though because
7 times in a 19 year cycle, an extra leap month (runyue) is added to the
year to bring it back into line with the longer solar year.
To explain the basis for determining when leap months are added,
one must first understand the Chinese system of solar terms.
24 dates, made up of 12 principle terms and 12 sectional terms, divide the
solar year into 24 periods that are based on the earth's position around the sun.
These include the equinoxes and the solstices.
According to the Chinese calendar, the winter solstice must occur in
month 11 of the year.
A lunar month in which a principle term does not occur becomes a leap
(or intercalary) month and is assigned the number of the month that
preceded it but is designated as a leap.
If this happens to occur twice in one year, only the first month in which it
occurs is a leap month.
The Chinese new year itself starts on the second new moon after the
winter solstice.
Chinese years, months, and days are also assigned a name based upon the
Chinese system of the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches.
In this cyclical system, each year, month, and day is associated with one
of the 10 Heavenly Stems and 12 Earthly Branches.
Each successive time period will have a new Stem and Branch, until going
through the Stems 6 times and the Branches 5 times, to give 60 unique
combinations.
In the case of years and dates, this gives a continuous cycle for thousands
of years.
This is similar for months, but in the case of a leap month, it is assigned
its previous month's Branch/Stem combination with the leap designation
added.
This is why the combination is so easily calculated for years and days,
but requires tables or complicated astronomical calculations to find
months."
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Two Kinds of Chinese Years
As if *that's* not complicated enough, there are
seemingly two kinds of Chinese years.
The first kind is the seasonal year, which is modeled on the (four seasons)
tropical year.
This seasonal year always begins with the Winter solstice (December 21 - 23).
The Chinese month that includes the Winter solstice day is the Rat month,
as the Rat is the first sign of the Chinese Zodiac.
The second kind of Chinese year is the civil year.
This is the year the (Chinese) people use in everyday life.
This civil year usually begins with the Li Chun Spring Festival.
The first month of this civil year (Tiger month) comes two
months later than the month that included the Winter solstice day
(Rat month).
(How are we doing so far ... you still with me?)
In other words, the *first* month of the civil year (Tiger month)
always corresponds to the *third* month of the seasonal year
(also Tiger month).
Which means therefore, that the so-called 'Two Chinese Years'
are actually one and the same.
For convenience, the months in the civil year are not named after the
animals, but are numbered from 1 to 12.
And here lies the confusion for while the Tiger month is the
first month in the Lunar (civil) calendar, it is the third
month in the Lunar (seasonal) calendar.
Please see Chinese Moon Signs and
Solar Signs in 12 Houses in 12 Palaces.
This should give further insight into how the 'two Chinese years' are
applied in the various Chinese Astrology systems.
I end this edition with an interesting insight on man's place in
Earth's history ...
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