What is the "winter solstice"?

Winter solstice, also known as winter festival, Asian New Year Festival and Long Day Festival, has both natural and humanistic connotations. It is not only an important solar term among the 24 solar terms, but also a traditional folk festival in China. From winter to the sun, the sun reaches 270 degrees, and festivals are held every year on the Gregorian calendar 65438+February 2 1-23. Winter solstice is one of the eight festivals in a year. In ancient times, there was a custom of "eight festivals" to worship the gods and ancestors. Winter solstice is regarded as a big holiday in winter. There is a folk saying that winter solstice is as big as a year, so the ancients called it "sub-year" or "off-year". In some coastal areas in southern China, the traditional custom of worshipping ancestors from the winter solstice is still continuing. In some areas of northern China, it is a custom to eat jiaozi every winter solstice.

The winter solstice marks the minimum height of the sun and the shortest day in the northern hemisphere, but the temperature in winter solstice is not the lowest. On the solstice of winter, the sun shines directly on the ground and reaches the southernmost tip of the year. The sun shines almost directly on the tropic of Capricorn (also known as the winter solstice daily line), and the sun is most biased towards the northern hemisphere. Therefore, in all parts of the northern hemisphere, the winter solstice is the shortest day in a year, and the farther north, the shorter the day. It is worth noting that around the winter solstice, the earth is located near the perihelion, and its running speed is slightly faster, resulting in that the time of direct sunlight in the southern hemisphere is about 8 days shorter than that in the northern hemisphere in a year, so the winter in the northern hemisphere is slightly shorter than that in summer.