# Year zero in Chinese calendar **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 10, 2005, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/year-zero-in-chinese-calendar/289328 "2005-02-10T02:47:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laughing_Lagomorph)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2005, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/year-zero-in-chinese-calendar/289328/1 "2005-02-10T02:47:08Z")
Some people at work were wondering if this is year 4702 in the Chinese calendar, what is the significance of the year they started numbering from? [This page](http://www.theorderoftime.com/cyber/to/time/calendars.html) implies it was a particular astronomical alignment but the site doesn’t seem very authoritative to me. Can anyone confirm, or have better info? Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![ZebraShaSha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/eada6e/32.png) [@ZebraShaSha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZebraShaSha)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2005, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/year-zero-in-chinese-calendar/289328/2 "2005-02-10T02:54:05Z")
“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 gānzhī) 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” From [wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_calendar) Not sure if this helps, considering it is merely speculative.