Republic of China calendar

Encyclopedia

The Republic of China calendar (Chinese: 中華民國曆) or Minguo calendar (Chinese: 民國紀年) is one of the calendars used in the Greater China area. The calendar uses 1912, the year of the establishment of the Republic of China (ROC), as the first year. The term “minguo” simply means “republic” (traditional Chinese: 民國; simplified Chinese: 民国; pinyin: Minguo; lit. ‘People’s State’). The ROC calendar follows the tradition of using the sovereign’s era name and year of reign, as did previous Chinese dynasties. Months and days are numbered according to the Gregorian calendar. The ROC calendar has been in wide use in the ROC since 1912, including in early official documents.

The ROC calendar is the official calendar used in Taiwan since 1945, and also adopted by Overseas Chinese and Taiwanesecommunities. Chorographies and historical research published in mainland China covering the period between 1912 and 1949 also use the ROC calendar.

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. The 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 de-legitimize 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 Minguo 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 the Kangxi Emperor, who ruled from 1662 to 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 2021, the “110th year of the Republic” is 民國一百一十年, 民國110年, or simply 110.

Based on National Standards of the Republic of China CNS 7648: Data Elements and Interchange Formats—Information Interchange—Representation of Dates and Times (similar to ISO 8601), year numbering may use the Gregorian system as well as the ROC era. For example, 17 April 2021 may be written 2021-04-17 or ROC 110-04-17.

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 era (30 July 1912 to 25 December 1926) also coincide with those of the ROC era.

In addition to the ROC’s Minguo calendar, Taiwanese continue to use the lunar 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

See also: Y1C Problem

The use of the ROC era system extends beyond official documents. 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.

Relation to the Gregorian calendar

To convert any Gregorian calendar year (1912 and after) to ROC calendar, subtract 1911.

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