Chinese Calendrics Software 13.  List Lunar New Years and Anniversaries

Clicking on the 'List lunar new years & anniversaries' button brings up a window with a list of Chinese lunar dates (with corresponding Western dates) with the same month number and day number as the date currently displayed, for 20 years from the year currently displayed. For example, if 79-12-05-05 CHL = 1995-06-02 CE is displayed then we obtain:

If the date currently displayed is a lunar new years day, e.g., 79-12-01-01 CHL = 1995-01-31 CE then we get a list of new years days:

In addition, for each nian the number of months in that nian is given, along with the number of J1s (known as "Start of Spring") and the number of Z1s (known as "Rain Water"). The number of occurrences of Start of Spring in a nian is considered to be an important quality of the year (see Couples Stampede to Wed). 1/3 of nians have two J1s, 1/3 have one and 1/3 have none. Almost all nians have one Z1 but rarely a nian may have two or none. All solar terms other than J1 and Z1 always occur exactly once in a nian.

A larger range of years (several hundred) can be obtained by changing the value in the 'years' box and clicking on 'List'.

European dates can be displayed either in the Common Era Calendar (CE) or in the Julian Calendar (JC). After changing, click on 'List' to relist.

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If we select the Japanese lunar calendar we find, in the list of new years days, a difference from the Chinese Calendar:

New years day 79-14-01-01 CHL corresponds to 1997-02-08 CE in Japan, but to 1997-02-07 CE in China. The difference is explained as follows: The dark moon of February 1997 occurred at 23:06 CCT at reference longitude 120° E (China). It also occurred at 00:06 JST at reference longitude 135° E (Japan). Since a lunar month begins on the day (nychthemeron) in which a dark moon occurs, the month began one day later in Japan than in China, so lunar new years day in 1997 was one day later in Japan than in China.

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New Years Day in the Chinese Lunar Calendar always occurs between January 20th and February 21st inclusive. Occurrences on either of these extreme dates are very rare (about 1 in 1000). New Years Day occurred on February 21st in 1108 CE and will occur next in 2319 CE. It occurred on January 20th in 30 CE, 49 CE and 497 CE, and probably in 421 CE and 869 CE ("probably" because of uncertainty concerning the value of Delta T prior to 1000 CE).

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If the Chinese lunar date displayed is a leap month or if the day is the 30th day of the month then simply adding or subtracting 1 from the cycle-position numbers may not produce a valid date. E.g., 79-06-08-30 CHL is a valid date, but 79-07-08-30 CHL is not. In this case clicking on 'List lunar new years & Chinese anniversaries' produces:

Chinese Calendrics looks for the nearest valid date in each year.

If 'Omit invalid dates' is checked then relisting gives:

Next: List lunar month starts and leap months
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