Is there an extra month next year?

Yes, with the passage of time, it will soon enter 2023. Beginning of spring is the first of the 24 solar terms, and it is also the first solar term in spring. The twenty-four solar terms reflect the seasonal characteristics of the climate throughout the year, which is closely related to the agricultural time, so the ancient working people paid great attention to the arrival of each solar term.

Especially the solar term in beginning of spring, which is the first solar term in the New Year, the ancients often took the solar term in beginning of spring as a symbol of the year, thus leaving many proverbs. As the saying goes, "arachis duranensis comes twice a year". What does this mean? Why are there two springs?

Why are there two beginning of spring in a year?

The appearance of two beginning of spring in a year is a unique phenomenon in Chinese calendar, which is actually caused by the "information error" between the solar calendar and the lunar calendar. The Gregorian calendar, also known as the Gregorian calendar year, is based on the law of the earth's revolution around the sun. The revolution of the earth 1 week is 1 year. The lunar calendar, which we call the lunar calendar, is based on the law of the moon's profit and loss. The orbit of the moon around the earth is 1 month, and a year is 12 months.

According to scientists' observation, it takes about 29.5306 days for the moon to circle the earth. This is what we call the lunar calendar. It takes 365.2422 days for the earth to make a revolution around the sun. This is also the solar calendar we use. In this way, the lunar calendar is ten days less than the solar calendar in a year, and three lunar calendars will be one month less than three solar calendars.

In order to make up for this gap in lunar calendar time, the lunar calendar introduced the leap month system. That is, in the appropriate year, plus one month, so there is a leap month. Because of the leap month, there is an extra month in the lunar calendar, and the 24 solar terms are fixed, resulting in two "beginning of spring" solar terms in a year. Of course, there will be years with or without solar terms in beginning of spring. According to this calculation, every 19 years in the lunar calendar, there are 7 years without beginning of spring, 7 years with double beginning of spring, and 5 years with single spring.