China Lunar Leap Month: Which month is the leap month?

1, leap month: every 2 to 3 years 1 leap month.

The so-called leap month is an extra whole month in a year. This is to coordinate the contradiction between the tropic of Capricorn and the Han calendar, and to prevent the month of the Han calendar from being out of touch with the tropic of Capricorn and the four seasons. Set 1 leap month every two to three years. In other words, there will be 13 months in a year in the new calendar, and the calendar that is conducive to agricultural activities after this situation is the lunar calendar. The leap month is created to coordinate the contradiction between the lunar calendar and the solar calendar.

The average lunar calendar is only about 354 days a year, which is less than that in period of revolution 1 1 day. This is reflected in the ancient situation. The most direct thing is that one year has passed and the four seasons have not finished. China was an agricultural society in ancient times, and its subsequent changes directly guided farming. In order to keep the calendar consistent with the cycle of the four seasons, the ancients decided to artificially increase the length of a year, so they set up a leap month on the basis of the lunar calendar.

2. In the lunar calendar, the month after leap month is called leap month. For example, the leap month of 20 17 appears after June of the lunar calendar, so it is called leap June.

Extended data:

The origin of leap month

BC 104, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty felt that the pre-Qin calendar had many disadvantages. The lunar calendar takes the northern month as the cycle, and the month is 30 days older and 29 days younger. 12 months is about? 354 days, compared with 366 days, "there are 12 days left in a year, and when you are three years old, you will be in January" year after year, which will make the month and the four seasons misplaced. So he ordered a new calendar, the "Early Calendar", and set the leap month at four o'clock.

Twenty-four solar terms are determined by the position of the earth at 15 once around the sun, and their dates are basically fixed. The setting of leap month is based on the 24 solar terms. The twenty-four solar terms are actually the collective name of 12 and 12 gas, and gas refers to middle gas.

The way to set leap is between two winter solstices. If it is only 12 months, it is not a leap; if it is 13 months, it is a leap. The leap month begins on the "winter solstice". When there is no "neutral gas" in the first month, then this month is a leap month, and its name is to add a "leap" to the previous month.

According to the lunar calendar method of "seven leaps in nineteen years", it is 1 leap almost every 2.3 years.

For example, there are17 months in the 20th lunar month. This month after June of the lunar calendar, only? "beginning of autumn" is a solar term, but it is not neutral. It is a leap in June. As a traditional calendar in China, the lunar calendar actually combines the movements of the moon and the sun, and is a kind of yin-yang calendar.

References:

Baidu encyclopedia-leap month