Minguo calendar

A calendar that commemorates the first year of the Republic as well as the election of Sun Yat-sen as the provisional President.

The Republic of China calendar (traditional Chinese: 民國紀元; simplified Chinese: 民国纪元; pinyin: Mínguó Jìyuán; Wade–Giles: Min²-kuo² Chi⁴-yüan²) is the method of numbering years currently used in Taiwan and other territories under the control of the Republic of China. It was used in mainland China from 1912 until the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

Following the Chinese imperial tradition of using the sovereign's era name and year of reign, official ROC documents use the Republic (traditional Chinese: 民國; simplified Chinese: 民国; pinyin: Mínguó; Wade–Giles: Min-kuo; literally: "The Country of the People") system of numbering years in which the first year was 1912, the year of the founding of the Republic of China. For example, 2016 is the 105th "year of the Republic". Months and days are numbered according to the Gregorian calendar.

The ROC calendar begins 1911 years later than the Gregorian calendar so, for example, 2016 − 1911 = 105th year of the Republic.

Calendar details

The Gregorian calendar was adopted by the nascent Republic of China effective 1 January 1912 for official business, but the general populace continued to use the traditional Chinese calendar. The status of the Gregorian calendar was unclear between 1916 and 1921 while China was controlled by several competing warlords each supported by foreign colonial powers. From about 1921 until 1928 warlords continued to fight over northern China, but the Kuomintang or Nationalist government controlled southern China and used the Gregorian calendar. After the Kuomintang reconstituted the Republic of China on 10 October 1928, the Gregorian calendar was officially adopted, effective 1 January 1929. The People's Republic of China has continued to use the Gregorian calendar since 1949.

Despite the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, the numbering of the years was still an issue. Chinese imperial tradition was to use the emperor's era name and year of reign. One alternative to this approach was to use the reign of the half-historical, half-legendary Yellow Emperor in the third millennium BC to number the years. In the early 20th century, some Chinese Republicans began to advocate such a system of continuously numbered years, so that year markings would be independent of the Emperor's regnal name. (This was part of their attempt to delegitimize the Qing Dynasty.)

When Sun Yat-sen became the provisional president of the Republic of China, he sent telegrams to leaders of all provinces and announced the 13th day of 11th Month of the 4609th year of the Yellow Emperor's reign (corresponding to 1 January 1912) to be the first year of the Republic of China. The original intention of the Mínguó calendar was to follow the imperial practice of naming the years according to the number of years the Emperor had reigned, which was a universally recognizable event in China. Following the establishment of the Republic, hence the lack of an Emperor, it was then decided to use the year of the establishment of the current regime. This reduced the issue of frequent change in the calendar, as no Emperor ruled more than 61 years in Chinese history — the longest being Kangxi Emperor who ruled from 1662–1722 (Kangxi 61). (Qianlong Emperor abdicated in 1795, i.e. Qianlong 60, but the reign name of Qianlong is still used unofficially until his death in 1799 i.e. Qianlong 64.)

As Chinese era names are traditionally two characters long, 民國 (Mínguó, "Republic") is employed as an abbreviation of 中華民國 (Zhōnghuá Mínguó, "Republic of China"). The first year, 1912, is called 民國元年 (Mínguó Yuánnián) and 2010, the "99th year of the Republic" is 民國九十九年, 民國99年, or simply 99.

Based on Chinese National Standard CNS 7648: Data Elements and Interchange Formats—Information Interchange—Representation of Dates and Times (similar to ISO 8601), year numbering may use the AD system as well as the ROC era. For example, 3 May 2004 may be written 2004-05-03 or ROC 93-05-03.

The ROC era numbering happens to be the same as the numbering used by the Juche calendar of North Korea, because its founder, Kim Il-sung, was born in 1912. The years in Japan's Taishō period (30 July 1912 to 25 December 1926) also coincide with those of the ROC era.

In addition to the ROC's Mínguó calendar, Taiwanese continue to use the lunisolar Chinese calendar for certain functions such as the dates of many holidays, the calculation of people's ages, and religious functions.

Arguments for and against

The use of the ROC era system extends beyond official documents. When used to mark expiration dates on products for export, they can be misunderstood as having an expiration date 11 years earlier than intended.^[1] Misinterpretation is more likely in the cases when the prefix (ROC or 民國) is omitted.

There have been legislative proposals by pro-Taiwan Independence political parties, such as the Democratic Progressive Party to abolish the Republican calendar in favor of the Gregorian calendar.^[2]

Relation to the Gregorian calendar

Generally, the ROC era is obtained by subtracting 1911 from the Gregorian calendar year.

ROC era	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
AD	1912	1913	1914	1915	1916	1917	1918	1919	1920	1921
ROC era	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
AD	1922	1923	1924	1925	1926	1927	1928	1929	1930	1931
ROC era	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30
AD	1932	1933	1934	1935	1936	1937	1938	1939	1940	1941
ROC era	31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40
AD	1942	1943	1944	1945	1946	1947	1948	1949	1950	1951
ROC era	41	42	43	44	45	46	47	48	49	50
AD	1952	1953	1954	1955	1956	1957	1958	1959	1960	1961
ROC era	51	52	53	54	55	56	57	58	59	60
AD	1962	1963	1964	1965	1966	1967	1968	1969	1970	1971
ROC era	61	62	63	64	65	66	67	68	69	70
AD	1972	1973	1974	1975	1976	1977	1978	1979	1980	1981
ROC era	71	72	73	74	75	76	77	78	79	80
AD	1982	1983	1984	1985	1986	1987	1988	1989	1990	1991
ROC era	81	82	83	84	85	86	87	88	89	90
AD	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001
ROC era	91	92	93	94	95	96	97	98	99	100
AD	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
ROC era	101	102	103	104	105	106	107	108	109	110
AD	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
ROC era	111	112	113	114	115	116	117	118	119	120
AD	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026	2027	2028	2029	2030	2031
ROC era	121	122	123	124	125	126	127	128	129	130
AD	2032	2033	2034	2035	2036	2037	2038	2039	2040	2041
ROC era	131	132	133	134	135	136	137	138	139	140
AD	2042	2043	2044	2045	2046	2047	2048	2049	2050	2051
ROC era	141	142	143	144	145	146	147	148	149	150
AD	2052	2053	2054	2055	2056	2057	2058	2059	2060	2061
ROC era	151	152	153	154	155	156	157	158	159	160
AD	2062	2063	2064	2065	2066	2067	2068	2069	2070	2071
ROC era	161	162	163	164	165	166	167	168	169	170
AD	2072	2073	2074	2075	2076	2077	2078	2079	2080	2081

Computer support

Since the release of Java 8, the Minguo calendar is supported in the new Date and Time API.

See also

• North Korean calendar or Juche calendar, which also began in 1912
• East Asian age reckoning
• Public holidays in Taiwan

References

1. http://forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=87414&p=1144893&e=1144893
2. Jimmy Chuang. "Taiwan may drop idiosyncratic Republican calendar". Taipei Times. 25 February 2006. page 1. Accessed 20 July 2009.