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In China, the native calendar is the "farmer's calendar" (農曆 nónglì), as opposed to the "civil calendar" (公曆 gonglì), or "Western calendar" (西曆 xilì).
The legendary beginning of the Chinese calendar developed during the first millennium BC. The legend states that the first Chinese calendar was invented by the first legendary emperor, Huangdi or the Yellow Emperor, whose reign was assigned to 2698-2599 BC. The fourth legendary emperor, Emperor Yao, added the intercalary month. The 60-year stem-branch (干支 gānzhi) cycle was first assigned to years during the first century BC. Giving Huangdi some maturity, the first year of the first cycle was assigned to 2637 BC according to Herbert A. Giles, A Chinese-English Dictionary (1912), and all other Western authors during the late Qing dynasty. Thus since 1984 the current cycle has been 78. However, some modern authors assign the first year of the first cycle to 2697 BC while Huangdi was still immature, saying we are now in cycle 79. These two epochs give rise to two continuous counts of years, causing the 'Chinese' years 4641 or 4701 to begin in early 2004.
However, continuously numbered sexagesimal cycles and the years based on them were inventions of Western chronologists—the Chinese themselves did not use either. But they did use unnumbered cycles, albeit in a subservient role to the reign-period year declared by the Emperor of China. Indeed, not using the emperor's reign-period was tantamount to treason punishable by death. But the Boxer rebellion of 1900 left the de facto ruler of China, the Empress Dowager CixiEmpress Dowager Cixi ( Chinese: ; Wade-Giles: Tz'u-hsi) ( November 29, 1835 November 15, 1908), popularly known in China as the Western Empress Dowager , and officially known posthumously as Empress Xiaoqin Xian , was a powerful and charismatic figure who, weakened and vulnerable to a challenge from Chinese Republicans, who intentionally used a continuous count of years to delegitimize the Qing DynastyThe Qing Dynasty ( Manchu: daicing gurun; Chinese: ; pinyin: qing chao; Wade-Giles: ch'ing ch'ao), sometimes known as the Manchu Dynasty was founded by the Manchu clan Aisin Gioro, in what is today northeast China expanded into China proper and the surrou by refusing to use its years. Although republican newspapers used more than one epoch, that selected by Sun Yat-senSun Yat-sen ( November 12, 1866 March 12, 1925) was a Chinese revolutionary leader and statesman. He had a significant influence in the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty and establishment of the Republic of China. A founder of the Kuomintang, Sun was the firs, 2698 BC, was adopted by most overseas ChineseOverseas Chinese ( in pinyin: huaqiao, or huabo, or qiaobo) are ethnic Chinese who live outside of Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, or Taiwan. There are approximately 60 million overseas Chinese mostly living in southeast Asia where they make up a majori communities outside southeast Asia like San Francisco's ChinatownSan Francisco's Chinatown is the largest and most prominent Chinatown in North America. The Chinatown of Manhattan, the second-largest, is considered its rival. The old, history-filed area has been experiencing some decline over the years due to the cropp, causing their year 4702 to begin in early 2004. Many chronologists, being unfamiliar with its history, think that 2698 BC is an error for the 2697 BC epoch obtained from sexagesimal cycles, whereas it is actually the only epoch actually used by some Chinese, albeit a minority (most Chinese don't use any continuous count of years from a legendary epoch).
The earliest archaeological evidence of the Chinese calendar appears on oracle bonesOracle bones were first fully excavated from the Anyang site in Henan Province China in 1899. They are mostly ox scapula and turtle shells or plastrons which when heated would crack. The priest in charge of the ceremony would read the cracks to learn the of the late second millennium BC Shang dynasty. They show a 12-month lunisolar year having an occasional thirteenth month, and even a fourteenth month. Because Chinese dates are on firm ground beginning in 841 BC, the calendar of the early Zhou dynasty is known to have used arbitrary intercalations. The first month of its year was near the winter solstice and its intercalary month was after the twelfth month. The sìfen 四分 (quarter remainder) calendar, which began about 484 BC, was the first calculated Chinese calendar, so named because it used a solar year of 365¼ days, along with a 19-year = 235-month Rule Cycle, known in the West as the Metonic cycle. The winter solstice was in its first month and its intercalary month was inserted after the twelfth month. Beginning in 256 BC with the Qin kingdom, which would later become the Qin dynasty, the intercalary month was an extra ninth month at the end of a year that began with the tenth month, now placing the winter solstice in the eleventh month. This year continued to be used during the first half of the Western Han Dynasty.
The great Emperor Wu of the Western Han dynasty introduced the basic rules that have governed the Chinese calendar ever since. His Tàichu 太初 (Grand Inception) calendar of 104 BC had a year with the winter solstice in the eleventh month and designated as intercalary any calendar month (a month of 29 or 30 whole days) during which the sun remained within the same sign of the zodiac throughout. Because the sun's mean motion was used to calculate the jiéqì until 1645, this intercalary month was equally likely to occur after any month of the year. However, the conjunction of the sun and moon (the astronomical new moon) used the mean motions of both the sun and moon only until 619, the second year of the Tang dynasty, when both began to use true motions modeled using two offset opposing parabolas (with small linear and cubic components). Unfortunately, the parabolas did not meet smoothly at the mean motion, but met with a discontinuity or jump.
With the introduction of Western astronomy into China via the Jesuits, the motions of both the sun and moon began to use sinusoids in the 1645 Shíxiàn (Constant Conformity) calendar of the Qing dynasty. The true motion of the sun was now used to calculate the jiéqì , which caused the intercalary month to often occur after the second through the ninth months, but rarely after the tenth through first months. A few autumn-winter periods have one or two calendar months where the sun enters two signs of the zodiac, interspersed with two or three calendar months where the sun stays within one sign.
The Gregorian calendar was adopted by the nascent Republic of China effective January 1, 1912 for official business, but the general populace continued to use the traditional calendar of the Qing Dynasty. The status of the Gregorian calendar between about 1916 and 1921 while China was controlled by several competing warlords is unknown. From about 1921 until 1928 warlords continued to control northern China, but the Kuomintang controlled southern China and probably used the Gregorian calendar. After the Kuomintang declared a reconstituted Republic of China October 10, 1928, they decreed that effective January 1, 1929, everyone must use the Gregorian calendar. They also decreed that effective January 1, 1929, all of China must use the coastal time zone that had been used by all European treaty ports along the Chinese coast since 1904. This changed the beginning of each calendar day, for both the traditional and Gregorian calendars, by +14.3 minutes from Beijing midnight to midnight at the longitude 120° east of Greenwich. The Kuomintang may have begun to number the years of their republic in 1929, regarding 1912 as year 1. When the Communists gained control of mainland China October 1, 1949, they simply continued using the Gregorian calendar, but now numbered the years in the Western manner, beginning with 1949. On both mainland China and Taiwan, the months of the Gregorian calendar are numbered 1-12 just like the months of the traditional calendar.