Calendar year

Today (at UTC+00)
Wednesday, 29 July 2026
Other calendars Armenian 9 Nawasardi 1476 Bengali 14 Shrabon, BS 1433 Chinese Yang Wood Dragon・Winnowing Basket Mansion 16 Liùyuè, Bǐngwǔnián (Dashu, 9 days until Liqiu) Common Era 29 July 2026 CE Coptic 22 Epip, AM 1742 Egyptian 14 Choiak, NE 2775 Ethiopian 22 Ḥamlē, AD 2018 French Republican Décade II, Primidi de Thermidor de l'Année 234 de la République Gregorian 29 July, AD 2026 Hebrew 15 Av, AM 5786 Islamic 13 Safar, AH 1448 (tabular method) ISO week date 2026-W31-3 Japanese 16 Minazuki, Reiwa 8 (Taisho, 9 days until Risshū) Julian 16 July, AD 2026 (AM 7534) Julian day 2461251 Maya 13.0.13.14.8 1 Yaxkin, 6 Lamat Roman ante diem XVII Kalendas Augustas, AUC 2779 Solar Hijri 7 Mordad, SH 1405
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A calendar year begins on the New Year's Day of the given calendar system and ends on the day before the following New Year's Day, and thus consists of a whole number of days. The astronomer's mean tropical year, which is averaged over equinoxes and solstices, is currently 365.24219 days. As this is not an integer, solar calendars have strategies to adjust for the 0.24219 remainder. Neither is it a whole number of lunar months (being about 10 or 11 days more than 12 lunations) so lunisolar calendars also must include adjustments to resynchronise with the seasons. Pure lunar calendars ignore the solar cycle and instead have an invariant year of twelve lunar months that drifts through the seasons.

The Gregorian calendar year, which is in use as civil calendar in most of the world, begins on January 1 and ends on December 31. It has a length of 365 days in an ordinary year but, in order to reconcile the calendar year with the astronomical cycle, it has 366 days in a leap year. With 97 leap years every 400 years, the Gregorian calendar year has an average length of 365.2425 days. The corresponding week year has the same mean year, but just 364 days (i.e. 52 full weeks) in most years and 371 days (53 weeks) in 71 out of 400.

Other formula-based calendars can have lengths which are further out of step with the solar cycle: The Julian calendar (a solar calendar) has an average length of 365.25 days because it is slightly more 366-day years than the Gregorian calendar. The Hebrew calendar (a lunisolar calendar) has an average length of 365.2468 days, but its calendar years are either 12 months for a total of 354 to 355 days or 13 months (384 days) long.

The lunar Hijri calendar ("Islamic calendar") is a true lunar calendar that consists of 12 lunar months in a year of 354 or 355 days and makes no attempt to track the solar year.

A year can also be measured by starting on any other named day of the calendar, and ending on the day before this named day in the following year. This may be termed a "year's time" or a "year", but is not a calendar year.

Parts

Quarter year

The calendar year can be divided into four quarters, often abbreviated as Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4.

When they are three full months each, they are also called trimesters. In the Gregorian calendar:

1. First quarter, Q1: January – March (90 days or 91 days in leap years)
2. Second quarter, Q2: April – June (91 days)
3. Third quarter, Q3: July – September (92 days)
4. Fourth quarter, Q4: October – December (92 days)

In some domains, weeks are preferred over months for scheduling and reporting, so they use quarters of exactly 13 weeks each, often following ISO week date conventions. One in five to six years has a 53rd week which is usually appended to the last quarter. It is then 98 days instead of 91 days long, which complicates comparisons.

In the Chinese calendar, the quarters are traditionally associated with the 4 seasons of the year:

1. Spring: 1st to 3rd month
2. Summer: 4th to 6th month
3. Autumn: 7th to 9th month
4. Winter: 10th to 12th month

Quadrimester

The calendar year can also be divided into three quadrimesters (from French quadrimestre), lasting for four months each. They can also be called the early, middle, or late parts of the year. In the Gregorian calendar:

1. First quadrimester, early year: January – April (119 days or 120 days in leap years)
2. Second quadrimester, mid-year: May – August (122 days)
3. Third quadrimester, late year: September – December (121 days)

Semester

The calendar year can also be divided into two semesters, lasting six months each and sometimes being abbreviated as S1 and S2. In the Gregorian calendar:

• First semester, S1: January – June (181 days or 182 days in leap years)
• Second semester, S2: July – December (184 days)

See also

• Academic term – Subdivision of the academic year at educational institutions
• Bissextus – Leap day (24 February used for two days) (historical usage)
• Calendar reform – Significant revision of a calendar system
• Common year – Calendar year with 365 days
• Fiscal year – One-year term for government and business financial reporting
• Intercalation (timekeeping) – Insertion of a leap day, week, or month
• ISO 8601 – International standards for dates and times
• ISO week date – Leap week calendar system
• Julian date – Days since the beginning of the Julian PeriodPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
• Julian year (astronomy) – a time interval of exactly 365.25 Earth days
• Julian year (calendar) – a year in the Julian calendar that is either 365 or 366 days, or 365.25 days on average
• Leap year – Calendar year with a day (or month) added
• Model year – Production date of a commercial product
• Ordinal date – Date written as number of days since first day of year
• Seasonal year – Time between successive recurrences of a seasonal event