Calendars
A calendar is a system of organising the days. It is sone by organizing and defining period of days, weeks, months and years. The date is used to designate a single day of such a system. A calendar is often considered a physical record of such a system (usually paper). Calendars are also used to define the list of planned events or activities such as a court calendar or a calendar of wills. There are about 40 calendar systems in the world and a lot of them are based on the positioning of the Sun and the Moon.
Types of the calendar:
- Lunar: As the name suggests, this calendar system is based on the cycles of the moon. It measures the time between one new moon and the next and arrange the months according to this.
- Lunisolar: A lunisolar calendar includes studying the moon phases along with the time of solar year to measure the time.
- Solar: It is based on a solar year( time taken by Earth to complete one revolution around the sun). Time is measured between vernal equinoxes here.
Popular calendars around the world:
- Chinese calendar: It is a lunar calendar and is thus based on the first day of the new moon. It includes leap months instead of days and has a strong influence of the zodiac in it.
- Hindu Calendar: It is based on religion and is a lunisolar calendar. It has been used in India for thousands and thousands of years. It is similar to the American calendar but consists of 354 days only and marks the prestigious Hindu festivals such as Diwali, Holi, Lohri e.t.c. The Buddhist calendar is also influenced by this calendar.
- Mayan calendar: It is a solar calendar introduced in 500BC. A lot of people believed that it was the end of the world according to the Mayan calendar in 2012. But, it turned out to be a mere misunderstanding as the Mayan calendar tracked a great cycle that ended in 2012 and it started a new cycle from thereon.
- Babylonian calendar: Introduced in 499 BC, it is a type of lunar calendar. Our 7-Day week system is derived from this calendar only. This calendar tracked the time that the moon took to transition between its phases and the week would start as well as end on the crescent moon.Julian Calendar: It was proposed by Julian Caesar in AUC 708 of the Roman empire. It is a lunisolar calendar and was used for many coming centuries in the world.
- Gregorian Calendar: People XIII revised the Julian calendar and created the Gregorian calendar in 1592. Not after much time of its introduction, it start spreading to near places such as Italy, Spain, Portugal and Germany. Today, it is the most popular calendar system in the world and is adopted by almost all the countries in the world and is the most common timekeeping system in the world.
- Islamic Calendar: It is a lunar calendar and is known as the Hijri calendar. It is similar to the Gregorian calendar and has 12 months but it does not include any leap months or days. It consists of sacred and non-sacred months.
References:
- http://www.webexhibits.org/calendars/calendar.html
- https://www.qualitylogoproducts.com/blog/different-types-of-calendars/
- https://www.parentcircle.com/different-types-of-calendars-used-around-the-world/article
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar
- https://www.altalang.com/beyond-words/6-calendars-around-the-world/