Copyright © 2002, 2003 Tex Texin. All rights reserved.
This page last updated 2003-10-01 (平成15年10月01日).
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The traditional Japanese calendar consists of eras based on the reigning emperors. The imperial date format is required for
some government documents and applications. For example, until Jan 1, 2002, the Japanese patent office used emperor dates.
This page gives you the Unicode character values, emperor era names and the layout information you need to produce a Japanese emperor date
and to convert from a western calendar.
Imperial dates are formatted with the name of the era followed by year, month, and day.
The Japanese characters for year (年, U+5E74), month (月, U+6708)
and day (日, U+65E5) are used as separators.
Today's date, "2003-01-24" (ISO 8601 yyyy-mm-dd)
might therefore be written in Japanese western style as
"2003年1月24日", and in
Japanese imperial style as "平成15年1月24日".
The year 2003 is the 15th year of the era Heisei (平成), which began in 1989 as year 1.
Note: "U+hhhh" is notation for Unicode scalar value (i.e. code point) using hexadecimal digits. You can
represent a character in HTML using
the Unicode scalar value by writing it as &#xhhhh;.
| Date Style | Date Example |
|---|---|
| American | January 13, 2003 |
| ISO 8601 | 2003-01-13 |
| Japanese, western digits | 2003年1月13日 |
| Emperor, western digits | 平成15年1月13日 |
| Emperor, Kanji digits | 平成十五年一月十三日 |
| Emperor | Era (English) | Era (Kanji) | Unicode Values | Edict | Start Date | End Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Akihito | HEISEI | 平成 or ㍻ | U+5E73, U+6210 or U+337B | GENGOU O ARATAMERU SEIREI
(Government ordinance to change the name of era) issued on January 7th, 1989. There is no overlap on dates between SHOWA and HEISEI. |
1989-01-08 | |
| Hirohito | SHOWA | 昭和 or ㍼ | U+662D, U+548C or U+337C | SHOWA KAIGEN NO SHOUSHO
(Imperial edict to change the name of era SHOWA) issued on December 25th, 1926. The language used in the edict is ambiguous whether December 25th is included or excluded in SHOWA. The word "IGO" can be interpreted as "after" or "from", so it is unclear whether SHOWA starts after December 25th or on December 25th. It is clear December 25th, TAISHOU 15 does exist. |
1926-12-25 | 1989-01-07 SHOWA 64 |
| Yoshihito | TAISHOU | 大正 or ㍽ | U+5927, U+6B63 or U+337D |
TAISHOU KAIGEN NO SHOUSHO
(Imperial edict to change the name of era to TAISHOU) issued on July 30th, 1912. The language used in the edict (like SHOWA) is ambiguous whether TAISHOU starts after July 30th or on July 30th. It's clear July 30th, MEIJI 45 does exist. |
1912-07-30 | 1926-12-25 TAISHOU 15 |
| Mutsuhito | MEIJI | 明治 or ㍾ | U+660E, U+6CBB or U+337E | MEIJI KAIGEN NO FUKOKU
(Declaration of changing the name of era to MEIJI) issued on September 8th, 1868. The declarations up to the MEIJI era, specify the name of the year, and there is no concept to start one era on a particular date of the year. So the first year of the MEIJI era entirely over-laps with the last year of KEIO (or KEIO 4). |
1868 | 1912-07-30 MEIJI 45 |
| KEIO | 1868 KEIO 4 |
Note: The first year of each era is always referred as GANNEN, meaning the first year of era. For example, the first year of HEISEI is called HEISEI GANNEN, instead of HEISEI 1. The year number 1 is never used to indicate the first year of era.
According to Japanese legend, Emperor Akihito, is Japan's 125th imperial sovereign in an unbroken line from Emperor Jimmu, who ascended the throne in about 660 B.C. Japan's is the world's oldest existing hereditary monarchy.
| Month | January | February | March | April | May | June | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Characters | 月 | 一 | 二 | 三 | 四 | 五 | 六 |
| Unicode Scalar Values | U+6708 | U+4E00 | U+4E8C | U+4E09 | U+56DB | U+4E94 | U+516D |
| Month Names | 一月 | 二月 | 三月 | 四月 | 五月 | 六月 | |
| Pronunciation | gatsu | ichi-gatsu | ni-gatsu | san-gatsu | shi-gatsu | go-gatsu | roku-gatsu |
| July | August | September | October | November | December | ||
| Characters | 七 | 八 | 九 | 十 | 十一 | 十二 | |
| Unicode Scalar Values | U+4E03 | U+516B | U+4E5D | U+5341 | U+5341 U+4E00 | U+5341 U+4E8C | |
| Month Names | 七月 | 八月 | 九月 | 十月 | 十一月 | 十二月 | |
| Pronunciation | shichi-gatsu | hachi-gatsu | ku-gatsu | jū-gatsu | jūichi-gatsu | jūni-gatsu | |
Japanese days of the week are sometimes abbreviated to the single Kanji character, but are formally written as 3 characters, the first Kanji indicating the particular day and the next two Kanji (曜日 yōbi) for "day". So today is Friday, shortname 金 and fullname 金曜日.
| Day | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Characters | 曜 日 | 月 | 火 | 水 | 木 | 金 | 土 | 日 |
| Unicode Scalar Values | U+66DC U+65E5 | U+6708 | U+706B | U+6C34 | U+6728 | U+91D1 | U+571F | U+65E5 |
| Day Names | 月曜日 | 火曜日 | 水曜日 | 木曜日 | 金曜日 | 土曜日 | 日曜日 | |
| Pronunciation | yōbi | getsu-yōbi | ka-yōbi | sui-yōbi | moku-yōbi | kin-yōbi | do-yōbi | nichi-yōbi |
Thanks to Takao Suzuki for the initial content of this page.
六曜 ROKUYO – Lucky And Unlucky Days in Japan
Calendar & Telling Time
Years in Japan by era and sexagesimal name (Japanese)
(English)
Shin Hanga Date Translation
Japan Inc. Japanese emperors
National Diet Library, Japan - Unriddling the Daisho-reki calendar
Japanese Calendar
Days of the week and months of the year in many languages
Data book of cultural convention in Asian countries -Dates (Good reference for many countries, with Unicode character values)
Can you tell me the old names of the months?
Copyright © 2002, 2003 Tex Texin. All rights reserved.
This page last updated 2003-10-01 (平成15年10月01日).
Top of page