Chinese Lunar Calendar

LunarCal

Perpetual Chinese Calendar

Thank You Hostway!

I would like to say thank you to Hostway and Joe Johnson for their kind generosity in sponsoring this domain and providing free web hosting. Now we can enjoy advertising free surfing here. Due to the significant increase in bandwidth, you should be able to download lunarcal program without much trouble.

	2006 - Year of the Dog "The martial strains have summoned me To hear your sorrows, Still your pain. I am the protector of Justice Equality - my sole friend. My vision never blurred by cowardice, My soul never chained. Life without honour Is life in vain. I AM THE DOG." Excerpt from "The Handbook of Chinese Horoscopes" by Theodora Lau.
	LunarCal is a 160-years perpetual Chinese Calendar program. You download the program and run it. Please click on the FAQ tab above and stop mailing me lazy questions.
	Sunday January 29, 2025 - start of the Year of the Fire[+] Dog (Bing-Xu). This is the 23^rd year of the 78^th Sexagenary Cycle of the Chinese calendar. Year 2006 is a lunar year with 13 lunar months. Month 7 is the intercalary month.
LunarCal completely enumerates 160 years of Chinese calendar for the years 1900-2060.	LunarCal's main screen is in Chinese. Other detail screens are in English. send-info	Screenshot of 1^st lunar month of 2005
	Above shows the 1^st lunar month for 2005. Chinese New Year falls on February 9, 2005.




	Dates of Chinese New Years and major festivals are shown. One complete moon phase is also shown for current month.

Despite the name, the Chinese calendar is a actually a lunisolar calendar and is therefore dependent upon the orbital properties (positions) of the Sun and the Moon. Essentially, Solar terms are used to demarcate the seasons and hence the year, while the astronomical New Moons are used as the basis units for counting the days and months and the start of the lunar year. Many people just call it Chinese calendar while some refers to it as Chinese lunar calendar. Academically speaking, the term Chinese calendar is preferable.

Since the calendar is based upon the true positions of the Sun and the Moon, the accuracy of the calendar depends upon the astronomical theories and formulae used. Current astronomical formulae using (VSOP theories) can give extremely accurate results.

So, it is not unusual to find that many Chinese festivals are related to the moon, especially the 1^st (New Moon) and 15^th day (Full Moon) of the lunar month. Chinese New Year falls on the 1^st day of the 1^st lunar month, while Moon Cake Festival falls on the 15^th day of the 8^th lunar month. Other Chinese festivals are based on particular positions (true longitude) of the Sun and the Moon. [Note: the 15^th day of the lunar month does not usually coincide with the astronomical Full Moon but is quite close.]

The Chinese calendar is enumerated using astronomical formulae based on meridian 120°E. Some outdated programs and textbooks uses meridian 116°25'E (location of Beijing) which is incorrect.

LunarCal is a 160-years perpetual Chinese calendar program. The program calculates the dates of Chinese New Years and important Chinese festivals for years 1900-2060. Since Chinese culture is closely related to the moon, extra emphasis is placed on the moon. This is implemented via the Moon Compass screen, which shows the actual illumination of the Moon and its position in the sky.

Please note that LunarCal is a downloadable executable computer software program for you to run in your own time on your PC. It is not an online web-based program. Just browse around using the navigation tabs at the top of the page! Note that only the first screen is in Chinese, all other information screens are in English. The download program is found under the LunarCal tab above.

Some pages in this site uses Unicode characters. For more information go Unicode page. This page also contains information on how to display/write Unicode using your web browser. You can also download my UnicodeViewer program which allows you to view all Unicode characters and their codes.

I hope you have fun using LunarCal.

Website Updated: 03-Nov-2005
(C) Copyright 2001-2005 K H Leong 梁錦華	Visitors (since Jan 19, 2025)
Get FireFox - Free Browser	Get FireBird - Free Email Client

Domain Sponsored and Hosted By: Hostway, The Web Hosting Company