20 knowledge about winter solstice

Winter solstice (English: Winter solstice), also known as "Winter Festival" and "Happy Winter", is one of the 24 solar terms in China and one of the eight astronomical solar terms, as opposed to summer solstice. The winter solstice begins when the sun reaches 270 degrees of the yellow meridian, which is about 65438+February 22 of the Gregorian calendar every year. According to legend, the solstice in winter is the New Year's Day of the Zhou Dynasty in history, and it was once a very lively day.

On the winter solstice, the direct position of the sun on the ground reaches the southernmost point of the year and almost directly reaches the Tropic of Capricorn (23 26' south latitude). On this day, the northern hemisphere gets the least sunshine, 50% less than the southern hemisphere. The days in the northern hemisphere are the shortest, and the farther north they are, the shorter they are.

In China, it is the custom to eat jiaozi from the solstice in winter. As the saying goes, "When winter solstice comes, eat jiaozi." Of course, there are exceptions, such as the custom of drinking mutton soup from winter solstice in Tengzhou, Shandong Province, which means driving away the cold. Dietary customs vary from place to place, but eating jiaozi is the most common. In today's Jiangnan area, there is another saying that eating winter makes you one year older, commonly known as "adding years"