How lunisolar calendars work

Lunar New Year is celebrated around the globe

“Lunar New Year” is a catchall term that encompasses celebrations in several Asian countries. The date of the new year can vary by location depending on which calendar—lunar, lunisolar, or solar—is being used, but many of the traditions are shared across borders.

China has used several different calendars because of changes in government structure

For many centuries, during which China was an imperial nation, the lunar/lunisolar calendar (aka the “rural calendar”) was the basis for organizing the year. Several attempts were made over the decades to switch to the Gregorian calendar—which begins Jan. 1—but it wasn’t until the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949 that it stuck.

The Lunar New Year is a major driver in China's economy

The annual festival brings in billions of dollars in both foreign and domestic tourism. The 2026 holiday includes an additional day, something Chinese officials hope will provide an even bigger boost to the country's somewhat stubborn national retail sales.

The last day of the Lunar New Year culminates in the Festival of Lanterns

The Festival of Lanterns celebrates the first full moon of the year. Elaborate, colorful light displays are held throughout China, with many regions having their own unique traditions, from the candle-lit lanterns in the south to the elaborate lighted ice sculptures common in the northeast.

A vegetarian diet is part of the Lunar New Year tradition

In keeping with China’s long history of Buddhism, which encourages vegetarianism, particularly on the first and 15th day of the lunar month, many people eat a plant-based diet (or at least a plant-based meal) on the first day of the Lunar New Year. The custom is supposed to increase participants’ good karma, bringing them extra blessings for the year to come.

The Lunar New Year was nearly lost

In 1949, Mao Zedong's rise to power reshaped Chinese traditions, including Lunar New Year. Mao saw it as outdated and replaced its festivities with political activities. During the Cultural Revolution, traditional customs were banned. After Mao's death in 1976, reforms under Deng Xiaoping revived the holiday.

Explained: The Year of the Rabbit

One of the world's largest holidays, this visual guide will help you welcome the Year of the Rabbit and celebrate the new lunar year.

How the months of the year got named

Curious about how the months got their names? This article from The Old Farmer's Almanac explores the origins of today’s Gregorian calendar. Based on the ancient Roman lunar calendar, the months were named after Roman gods until winter when the names changed to numerical titles. Read along to learn the significance and intentions behind labeling each lunar cycle.

Why Easter's date changes, making it a 'moveable feast'

Unlike Christmas, Easter has no fixed date: It falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after March 21, a formula set by the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE to form a standard across Christianity. The result is a window of 35 possible dates, from March 22 to April 25.

Firecrackers on Lunar New Year originated to ward off evil spirits

Many countries have attempted to ban firecrackers, though some rolled back those restrictions for the sake of the holiday. This tradition, along with numerous other practices, has evolved for decades since the origin of the festival.

Look up the date of any Islamic holiday going back to 622 CE

The US Naval Observatory's calculator converts Hijri calendar dates to Gregorian and vice versa, covering Islamic holidays from the first year of the Islamic calendar through the present. The resource helps show how much Ramadan's dates shift year over year and allows readers to find out when Ramadan would have fallen in a certain year.

The Ancient Chinese harnessed solar power for heating and cooling 6,000 years ago

Neolithic Chinese homes faced south for winter sun warmth, while overhangs shielded them from high summer sun. These efforts also influenced urban planning, with cities aligning streets east-west for optimal solar exposure.

The legend of the Chinese zodiac involves a race between animals

The legend of the Chinese zodiac says that to help people keep time, the emperor of the gods established a 12-year cycle, with each year symbolized by a different animal. To choose the animals, he held a cross-river race. Each of the winning animals used their unique skills to get across the river: The snake is sneaky, the rabbit is nimble, and the rat is cunning. These characteristics are believed to be mirrored by those born under the animals’ zodiac signs.

The American colonies recognized New Year’s Eve in March until 1752

England followed the Julian calendar, established by Julius Caesar, which had an inaccurate method of calculating leap years. Because of that, New Year’s Day eventually slipped into the spring and was linked with the Christian festival of the Annunciation, which was on March 25. That date carried over to the American colonies, which didn’t change the first day of the new year until 1752, after England adopted the newer Gregorian calendar.

Meteorological v. astronomical seasons, explained

Meteorologists and climatologists define seasons differently from “regular” or astronomical spring, summer, fall, and winter. Traditional seasons reflect the movement of celestial objects, known as the astronomical seasons; meteorologists mark seasonal change based on temperature averages.

How people imagine a calendar year

It turns out everybody imagines the abstract calendar year in a simple, concrete way, though there are surprising differences between the exact model and shape of each image. Dive into one writer's collection of tens of thousands of questionnaire responses showing the fascinating consistency and divergence of how people visualize time.

Why time ticks faster on the moon, which may need its own time zone

Because Earth exerts a stronger gravitational pull than the moon, it lags behind between 56 and 59 microseconds each day, or about one second every 46.5 years. This impacts essential synchronous operations of future electronic equipment on the lunar surface, which could be alleviated by a standardized conversion system between Earth and moon time zones.

Hanukkah is one of 8 major Jewish holidays

This calendar, maintained by the Reform Judaism organization, not only shows when each holiday is to be celebrated in the current year, but also includes short histories and common rituals.

Ancient civilizations predicted eclipses by tracking different cycles of their recurrence

The periodic nature of the orbits of the sun, moon, and Earth results in several series called saros cycles, in which the geometric configuration of these celestial bodies that produces an eclipse recurs after about 6585 days. Because eclipses are viewable from different locations on Earth, there exist many saros cycles, one for each ecliptic configuration.

Mardi Gras blends pagan celebrations with Christian traditions

The holiday has its roots in pagan celebrations, like ancient Rome's Saturnalian and Lupercalian festivals, which celebrated spring and fertility. Rather than abandoning these traditions, Catholic leaders in Rome incorporated their spirit into a celebration that would expel citizens' debauchery in preparation for the sacrifices they'd endure during the Lenten season. Around the world, this holiday season is called Carnival, though the New Orleans version is usually called Mardi Gras.

Ramadan moon-sighting can spark intra-family disputes

Because different communities—and even different members of the same family—follow different methods for confirming the crescent, Ramadan doesn't always start on the same day for everyone. The result: "moon wars" that pit parents against children, and mosques against each other, on when exactly the fast begins.

Is the sun aligned with Stonehenge right now?

Twice a year, during the longest day and night, the sun’s path aligns ever so gently with the ruins of Stonehenge. During the summer solstice, viewers can see the sun’s rise crest the central heel stone. The winter solstice sees the sun set across the site’s altar stone. Use this interactive to tour the historic site and check its current skyscape.

Learn how the Egyptians, Romans, and other ancient civilizations worshipped the sun

In Egypt, the pharaoh was seen as the living embodiment of the son of Ra, the sun god. In Mesopotamia, the sun god Shamash was a divine judge whose light could reveal the truth. Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec god of sun and war, was thought to require sacrifices to prevent the universe's destruction.

The solar noon clock outside Rhodes Hall at Cornell is named after Bill Nye

In addition to displaying the analog time, the clock's face features an indicator disc that illuminates, even on cloudy days, whenever the sun reaches its highest point in the sky. Nye developed the initial apparatus designs, which were later co-engineered and built by Cornell staff and students.

A look at whether the Last Supper was a Passover Seder meal

Three of the four Gospels describe the Last Supper as a Passover meal, and scholars have cataloged more than a dozen parallels: wine, broken bread, sung hymns, and reclining at the table. But most historians of early Judaism now note that the formal Passover Seder didn't exist as a codified ritual until after 70 CE, decades after Jesus died.

While the sun's gravity keeps the planets in orbit, their gravity also pulls on the sun, causing it and everything else in the solar system to orbit around a mutual balance point called the barycenter—the true center of the solar system.

Visualize the path of every solar eclipse from 1900 to 2099 and see what each looks like when observed from different locations on Earth.

El Niño, Spanish for 'the boy,' was named after Jesus Christ because the phenomenon resembled the weather changes observed around Christmastime.

Studies suggest when you sleep is as important as how much you get, and syncing with your circadian rhythms may lead to less fatigue and improved long-term health outcomes

All rainbows are 'raincircles' caused by water droplets separating white sunlight into a spectrum of colors, but Earth's surface blocks the bottom half of the circle from our line of sight.

'Silent' fireworks have gained more interest in recent years as a quieter celebratory option.

Chaos theory—informally known as the butterfly effect—is the reason why weather forecasts are presented with probabilities rather than certainties.

Apollo astronauts left items in the moon's 'toss zone,' including golf balls, family photos, and bags of human waste, to make room for lunar rocks.

Poison ivy can cause rashes year-round since all parts of the plant contain urushiol, the oil that triggers our allergic response.

Calculate how much of your tax dollars go to each federal program based on your income, filing status, and number of children

Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency—a form of digital currency with a wide variety of uses—created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes.

NBA superstar Victor Wembanyama spent the 2025 summer training with monks in central China to enhance his body and mind.

The term 'algorithm' originated from the Latinized name of al-Khwārizmī, a 9th-century mathematician whose works introduced Arabic numerals and the decimal-based numeral system to Europe and whose treatise 'Al-Jabr' gave algebra its name.

Sunflowers have long been a symbol of nuclear disarmament because they can extract large amounts of radioactive cesium from soil.

The hormonal disorder PCOS was renamed PMOS in 2026, a move designed to improve care and research by shifting the focus to the hormonal causes of this condition that affects 1 in 8 women.

Some renewable energy sources may weaken the resiliency of electric grids by removing outage buffers provided by coal- and natural gas-fired plants, which provide the system with more time to find a new power source if a plant goes down.

SpaceX's S-1 or 'prospectus' revealed many previously unknown details about the company, including its unprofitability despite doing $18.7B in revenue in 2025, exactly how many voting shares Elon Musk will have in the company (roughly 85%), and more.

In recent years a child anxiety expert has created and tested a novel phobia and anxiety treatment approach for children, focused on changing how parents respond to the fears.

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time

Budweiser stores yeast derived from the original 1800s strain in a secret bunker, which only the Head of Yeast Management can access—not even the CEO

Planarian flatworms are small, aquatic worms with exceptional regenerative capabilities. When cut, the worms can regenerate multiple bodies in a matter of weeks.

Take a 3D tour of the Hajj, Islam's annual pilgrimage to Mecca, undertaken by over 1.5 million Muslims.

In preparation for this weekend's Eurovision finale, which is something like the World Cup of pop music, here's a young Céline Dion performing (for Switzerland?) at the 1988 competition.

Despite being favored by 87% of Americans, Congress does not have term limits.

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