Chinese Lunar Calendar

Chinese Agricultural Calendar
The traditional Chinese calendar is known as the Agricultural Calendar (Nongli in Chinese), as the calendar divides the year into seasons for agriculture, which is the principal economy of the country in the ancient China. Even today, it still has the great significance to many Chinese people.

Calendars that are based on the moon's orbit around the Earth are known as lunar calendars (Yinli in Chinese), and Solar calendars (Yangli in Chinese) are another category of calendars that are based on the positions of the Sun through the seasons. The Agricultural Calendar is an integrated lunar-solar calendar as it embraces the movement of the moon as well as that of the Sun.

In ancient time, observation of moon phases is a convenient way to count the days. For example, new moon goes to first quarter and then to the full moon and last quarter, next it returns to the new moon. Months in the Agricultural Calendar start with a new moon, which occurs when the moon and the Sun move to the same longitude on the ecliptic.

24 Solar Terms
The 24 solar terms is a gross name of the system that consists of 12 major solar terms and 12 minor solar terms. Starting from ‘vernal equinox', the 12 major solar terms are ‘vernal equinox', ‘corn rain', ‘corn forms', ‘summer solstice', ‘great heat', ‘end of heat', ‘autumnal equinox', ‘frost', ‘light snow', ‘winter solstice', ‘severe cold' and ‘spring showers'. The minor solar term after ‘vernal equinox' is ‘bright and clear', and then in turn ‘summer commences', ‘corn on ear', ‘moderate heat', ‘autumn commences', ‘white dew', ‘cold dew', ‘winter commences', ‘heavy snow', ‘moderate cold', ‘spring commences' and ‘insects waken'. At ‘vernal equinox' and ‘autumnal equinox', the length of daylight and the night are equal. The period of daylight is the longest at ‘summer solstice' and the shortest at ‘winter solstice' in northern hemisphere. These were the earliest solar terms determined in ancient time. Then it came the four solar terms ‘spring commences', ‘summer commences', ‘autumn commences' and ‘winter commences'. Other solar terms were named later according to the weather and agricultural activities prevalent at the respective times of the seasons. The ‘24 solar terms' reflects to some extent the climate over central China in ancient time. They represent the early wisdom of Chinese people.

The 12-Year Animal Cycle

The history of using 12-year animal cycles to record the years in China dates back to 100 A .D. Each year is represented by an animal and the 12 animals are mouse, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. As to the order of these 12 animals, there is a legend. Every one among the 12 wants to be placed first of the cycle. Hence, a fairy proposes a contest: the order will be decided by the places in the competition that reaching the opposite bank of the river. Unknown to the ox, the rat jumps upon his back at the very beginning. As the ox is about to go ashore, rat jumps off his back and wins the race. As to the pig, he becomes the last one for his laziness.

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