Random NYE (or New Years Day) musing on the ubiquity of the Gregorian calendar. Does anyone actually follow a non Gregorian calendar? As in not just know what Gregorian date a particular festival or holy month falls on, but actual keep track of what day it is in that calendar from day to day. Would any dopers (or people they know personally), for example, if asked what the date it is next Tuesday be able to say Rajab 17, 1447 AH, without googling it?
FYI: 4 countries don’t: Adoption of the Gregorian calendar - Wikipedia
The four countries which have not adopted the Gregorian calendar are
Ethiopia (Ethiopian calendar),[49] Nepal (Vikram Samvat and Nepal Sambat), Iran and Afghanistan (Solar Hijri calendar).
My wife is Iranian. She doesn’t follow the Persian calendar in the sense of actually using it day to day but she certainly keeps it in the back of her mind (I asked her the current Persian year and she answered without hesitation).
Even in those countries do people actually use the official calendar day to day? Like when a Nepalese business person uses MS Outlook to book a meeting does it appear in Vikram Sambar? Surely not?
Any Nepali, Ethiopian, etc. dopers have personal experience of how that works?
That’s interesting as that is not what is typically called the “Islamic calendar” (which is lunar). I guess lunar calendars harder to use IRL?
The Persian calendar is indeed solar, not lunar. Dates map one to one on an annual basis. The New Year starts on the Spring Equinox (the holiday known as Nowrouz).
My wife confirms that people inside the country use this calendar for general internal business day to day, but are also usually fluent with the Gregorian calendar due to regular needs outside the country (e.g. travel) and many calendar apps will show dates side by side on request.
A lot of Japanese use both the Gregorian calendar and Imperial calendar. Probably the most widely recognized era is the Showa, since it spanned over 60 years and included a LOT of world history involving Japan. The current era is Reiwa. I have a friend who can mentally convert from Gregorian to Imperial pretty quickly. It’s impressive how she can do that, but I guess if it’s a system you grew up with, it must come pretty easily.
Growing up in Taiwan in the 80s and 90s, it was common for official documents to use the Taiwan calendar: Republic of China calendar - Wikipedia
It’s basically Gregorian, except instead of counting up from the year of Jesus’s birth, it counts up from the year that particular government started. If it’s January 1st, 2026 here in the US, it’s 115-01-02 there.
I haven’t lived there for quite a while, but while I did, most anybody would know the current year in both systems.
Also, my father is old enough that his birthday pre-dates Western style recordkeeping. He only knows vaguely the lunar period during which he was supposed to have been born, and has to estimate the Gregorian solar date every year to approximately celebrate it.
In Crocodile Dundee, the main character says that he was brought up by aborigines who said that all they could tell him about his birthdate is that he was born in the summer. That is what aborigines there used to do. In the twentieth century, they would only know the season of their birth:
I live in China and visit South Korea, where I used to live, twice a year. Both countries employ the Gregorian calendar and China’s lunar calendar at the same time. People are aware of what the date is for both systems. From what I can tell, women in South Korea generally celebrate their birthdays based on the lunar calendar, so there’s an incentive there to keep track of the lunar date. The hassle I have with their lunar calendar is it’s still a mystery to me how to determine when to add the leap month.
Do the men there celebrate on a different calendar..?
Most Jews would fall in the first category, using the Gregorian for daily use, and the Jewish calendar only WRT holidays. But I’m reasonably certain that a large percentage of Orthodox Jews around the world (and probably a fair number of observant Conservative Jews, as well) could tell you that today, Jan. 2, 2026, is 13 Tevet, 5786. (I’m not Orthodox, I had to look it up.)
Yes, any Jew who prays in the synagogue weekly (or more often) will know what day it is in the Hebrew calendar. And all the Jewish holidays are tracked that way. (And because the calendar is lunar, even non-religious Jews like me know about when each month begins.)
I’ve been learning the Jewish calendar, and I can tell you that today is the 13th of Tevet, 5786, but I haven’t managed to remember much else yet.
This would be more exciting if the country in question was not on a seven-day week.
In my circle, nowhere near as many men tell me their birthdays and those who do, use the Gregorian calendar. One of my theories on this is the women want the presents earlier and the men don’t want to age as fast.
Reminds me of a silly old joke.
Q: When is Rosh Hashana next year?
A: Same as every other year: 1st of Tishrei.
Other than the year, there isn’t a difference, as you said so it’s not really different.
Having the Imperial Era name makes it a little harder to calculate the number of years between dates but that’s it.
As others have noted, Korea, China and Taiwan use both the Western and a lunar calendar for things such as birthdays and lunar New Year.
“It’s the Jewish new year 5786, and I’m still writing 5785 on my checks!”
I lived in a mostly Islamic area of Africa some time ago. During the month of Ramadan, everyone knew what day of the month it was, because that told you how many days of fasting were left.
During other months, people didn’t pay much attention to the Islamic calendar.
Correct me if I am wrong but I think they use the Hebrew calendar generally in Israel.