Is the winter solstice the shortest day in a year?

The winter solstice is the year with the shortest day and the longest night in the northern hemisphere. After the solstice in winter, the days will get longer day by day.

It is not only an important solar term among the 24 solar terms, but also a traditional folk festival in China. The solstice in winter is one of the eight festivals in four seasons, and it is considered as a big holiday in winter. There is an ancient saying that the solstice in winter is as big as a year, so the ancients called it "off-year" or "off-year".

The custom of winter solstice varies in content or details due to different regions. In some areas along the southern coast of China, there are customs of offering sacrifices to ancestors and feasting on the winter solstice. In northern China, it is a custom to eat jiaozi from winter to Sunday every year.

Extended data:

For all parts of the northern hemisphere, the winter solstice is also the day with the lowest sun height at noon all year round. North of the Arctic Circle, the sun is below the horizon all day, which is the widest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. In winter solstice, the northern hemisphere gets the least solar radiation, which is about 50% less than that in the southern hemisphere in hot summer.

The winter solstice is the southernmost day of the sun in a year, and it is also the limit of the sun's southward travel. After this day, the direct point of the sun began to move northward from the Tropic of Capricorn, and the length of the day in the northern hemisphere began to get longer and the height of the sun gradually became higher at noon.

It is worth noting that around the winter solstice, the earth is located near the perihelion, and its movement speed is slightly faster, which leads to that the time of the sun in the southern hemisphere is about 8 days shorter than that in the northern hemisphere, so the winter in the northern hemisphere is slightly shorter than that in summer.