Calendar date
A date in a calendar is a reference to a particular day by means of a calendar system. The calendar date allows the particular day to be identified and relative to all other dates. For example February 17, 2003 is ten days after February 7, 2003 in the Gregorian calendar.
In most calendar systems the date consists of three parts: the year, the month and the day of month. There may also be additional parts, such as the day of week.
A date with the year part removed may also be referred to as a date or calendar date (e.g. February 7 rather than February 7, 2003). As such it defines the days of an annual festival such as a Birthday or Christmas on December 25th.
Date format
Related to the classification of a day as a specific calendar date, is the format used to express that date.
Even for one calendar system, different formats are used. For example, the following formats all express the same date in the Gregorian calendar:
- November 16, 2001
- 11/16/2001 - has been used in places with American influence
- 16 November 2001
- 16/11/2001 - has been used in places with European influence
- 2001 November 16
- 2001-11-16 - is one of the ISO 8601 International standard forms
d/m/y is used by
- Australia
- Austria
- Belgium
- Brazil
- Canada
- Catalonia
- Denmark
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Ireland
- Italy
- Netherlands
- Norway
- Spain
- Switzerland
- UK
m/d/y is used by
y/m/d,the ISO 8601 standard, is used by:
The difference in date format has caused confusion.
How to say dates in english (prepositions before the date)
(examples and uses to come)
See also: Date-time group, Japanese calendar, Japanese imperial calendar