Naturalist's Almanac

The Chinese solar calendar is less familiar than the Chinese lunar calendar, which is the one that gets all the press during Chinese New Year celebrations. But I find the solar calendar more useful because it divides the year into 24 mini-seasons with names descriptive of what’s going on in the natural world.

These mini-seasons, each of which lasts for 15 or 16 days, are called solar terms, or more poetically, “joints and breaths.” The year begins with the solar term called “Spring Begins,” which occurs halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox — on February 4 in the year 2000.

Using dates based on Universal Time — the time at the Greenwich Meridian — to avoid the confusion that can be caused by different time zones and the international date line, the solar terms for 2000 are:

Spring Begins (Feb 4-Feb 18)
Rain Water (Feb 19-Mar 4)
Excited Insects (Mar 5-Mar 19)
Vernal Equinox (Mar 20-Apr 3)
Clear and Bright (Apr 4-Apr 18)
Grain Rains (Apr 19-May 4)
Summer Begins (May 5-May 19)
Grain Fills (May 20-Jun 4)
Grain in Ear (Jun 5-Jun 20)
Summer Solstice (Jun 21-Jul 5)
Slight Heat (Jul 6-Jul 21)
Great Heat (Jul 22-Aug 6)
Autumn Begins (Aug 7-Aug 21)
Limit of Heat (Aug 22-Sep 6)
White Dew (Sep 7-Sep 21)
Autumn Equinox (Sep 22-Oct 6)
Cold Dew (Oct 7-Oct 22)
Hoar Frost (Oct 23-Nov 6)
Winter Begins (Nov 7-Nov 21)
Little Snow (Nov 22-Dec 5)
Great Snow (Dec 6-Dec 20)
Winter Solstice (Dec 21-Jan 5)
Little Cold (Jan 6-Jan 19)
Great Cold(Jan 20-Feb 3)

These 24 solar terms helped ancient Chinese farmers remember their way through the agricultural year, and they could easily be adapted to help modern naturalists remember their way through the natural year.

Because the solar terms are based on the sun rather than complicated, sometimes compromised solar-lunar systems that underlie most civil and religious calendars, they offer the purest, most natural calendar I’ve found.

MORE INFORMATION

The Friesian School
http://www.friesian.com/chinacal.htm

This Web site offers detailed information on the Chinese calendar with a clear explanation of the solar terms. There are also a number of links that lead to additional information. For consistency, I use this Web site’s translations for the names of each solar term and its dates for the year 2000.

Chinese Fortune Calendar
http://www.chinesefortunecalendar.com/FAQ.htm

This is a Chinese astrology Web site, but it’s written by a mathematician/computer scientist who has spent over a decade researching solar and lunar dates. His explanation of the Chinese solar terms is clear and simple, and the rest of his Web site is full of fascinating information.

Lichun - Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lichun

This Wikipedia article is written partially in Chinese, but it also includes some good information in English. A solar terms graphic and a chart of dates offer useful references.