Glossary

Chinese calendar

Term · calendar

How Chinese sources date a year: by the era name (nianhao) proclaimed by the emperor — under the Ming and Qing one per reign — from the Tang to the end of the empire in 1912. The era names from the Tang to the Qing are filed under this term. Chinese dates name the era (nianhao) and the year within it. The emperors of the Tang, the Five Dynasties, the Song and the Yuan changed their era names freely; from the Ming on, each emperor kept one era for his whole reign, and is known by its name — the Qianlong Emperor reigned in the Qianlong era (1736–1795). The years of the sexagenary cycle run beside the eras. Every era name has its own entry under this term, with its years. The dates before 1400 (Tang to Yuan) follow the DILA Time Authority Database (CC BY-SA 3.0), the Ming and Qing eras Wikidata.