How the Chinese Lunar Calendar is Calculated

The lunar calendar is a kind of yin and yang calendar, which takes the change cycle of the moon phase that is the lunar month as the length of the month, refers to the solar return year as the length of the year, and makes the average calendar year compatible with the return year by setting up intercalary months. According to the Chinese ancestor Xuanyuan Huangdi ascended to the throne for the first year to calculate, this year 2016 AD, is the lunar calendar 4713 C Shen monkey year, China's traditional calendar than the Western common calendar 2697 years earlier, with the year of AD + 2697 can be derived from the year of China's traditional calendar.

On the origin of the lunar calendar, a large number of ancient texts record that the lunar calendar began in the era of the Yellow Emperor, and its yin and yang calendar rules are generally believed to have arisen in the Shang Dynasty. The lunar calendar's method of fixing the month is given in terms of the lunar cycle, with the first day of the lunar month being the first day of the month, and the lunar month being about 29 and a half days long, so that the lunar calendar has a big month of 30 days and a small month of 29 days.

The lunar calendar has twelve months in a normal year, 354 or 355 days in a year; in a leap year, there are thirteen months, of which a certain month is a leap month, the name of which depends on the name of the previous month, such as the previous month is August, and the leap month is Leap August. Leap year 383 days or 384 days a year; the lunar calendar to set the leap month method is, the lunar calendar month in the month without "in the air" in the month to set the leap; in addition to the lunar calendar and according to the position of the sun, the solar year is divided into twenty-four seasons, reflecting the cold and hot climate change, so the lunar calendar is actually a yin and yang calendar.

In 1912, China began to adopt the Western calendar and China's traditional calendar, the lunar calendar and chronology, the Republic of China, the Republican League founded the "People's Daily" on the use of the lunar calendar Huangdi chronology, after the Wuchang Uprising, the military government in Hubei also adopted the lunar calendar chronology, the provincial governments also followed the use of the lunar calendar.

Sun Wen assumed office as the provisional president of the Republic of China, issued a "change of the calendar to change the yuan telegram" stipulated that the Republic of China to use the solar calendar, to the lunar calendar in the year of 4609 years that is the Xinhai November 13th (i.e., the Xuantong three years of the Qing dynasty on November 13th, January 1, 1912) for the Republic of China on New Year's Day, and the people also continue to follow the lunar calendar, the traditional festivals of the various regions of our country as well as the ethnic minority regions are calculated by the lunar calendar. Lunar Calendar, most of the countries and peoples in the Chinese cultural circle still follow the traditional festivals of the Lunar Calendar.