A date is a number used to specify a particular day of the year or month. Dates are very important for the proper functioning of society. We schedule future things according to the date and implement them as well. Though there is a standardized date format around the world, in different regions and countries, people follow their own date formats. Let’s find out what time format is used in Europe and how can you write dates in Europe.
1. What is European format?
The European format is the format that the European countries use to write down their dates. They use the DD/MM/YYYY format. The British took their date format from this European format only. Be it Danish, Swedish, German, French, or any other country’s rules, you will find this very date format there also. (See What is Washington DC Time Zone Right Now?)
2. How can You write Dates in Europe?
In European countries as well as a lot of places in the world, in date format, the day comes first and is followed by the month, and then the year. So, how can you write dates in Europe? If you are required to write on the first of January 2022, then you can write it as
- 1 January 2022
- 1/1/22
- 01/01/2022
But in European formal writing, the date is written in a similar way to the American format. Here you will have the month and day switched around, which means now January 1, 2022, will be written as 1 January 2022. The European version doesn’t have a comma to separate year and date because it is an American thing and Europeans do not follow it. (See How to Write the Date in Korean?)
3. Why does Europe write the Date differently?
After learning how can you write dates in Europe, let’s discuss why Europe uses a different date format. The Europeans write dates in DD/MM/YYYY, which is different from that of other countries. The reason behind that is that Europe is classified as little endian. While writing dates, it uses the smallest value first and ends with the biggest value. Here, the smallest value is the date, which is followed by the month and then the year.
They use this format because it’s more rational. It is generally known what month and year you are in. Thus it’s only logical to go from a more specific value which is the day to a more general value which is the month and year. It’s just a simple logical progression from smaller to bigger. However, some still use the YYYY MM DD format in Europe. (See How Long is 72 Months in Years?)
4. What Time Format is used in Europe?
It becomes quite a hassle when you have some business with people belonging to Europe and you don’t know their time format. Most non-English-speaking countries, like Europe, don’t use the AM and PM systems; they instead use a 24-hour clock. They will write 3:00 PM as 15:00. Though the time before the 12th hour is usually written with just an AM or PM. 8:00 AM will be written as 8:00.
In this format, you first write the hour, then the minutes, and the seconds. Colons or periods are used to separate these time values. For example, 13:35:22 or 13.25. The Europeans, nonetheless, can understand the 12-hour format. They even informally use this format. Now, no matter what time format is used in Europe, you can easily understand it. (See What is A.M. and P.M. in Time?)
5. How can you read European Dates?
As you know what time format is used in Europe, let’s learn how can you read European dates. The European date format is different from the standard American date format. The European format is written as DD/MM/YYYY. It progresses from smaller to bigger value. The DD in this format denotes the day, MM denotes the month, and YYYY denotes the year. If a date is written as 1/1/2022, then in the European format it will be read as the first of January 2022. (See What Year is it actually?)
6. Does UK use MM DD YYYY?
How can you write dates in Europe? The date format in the UK is similar to that of the European countries, which is the DD/MM/YYYY format. The UK originally had the MM/DD/YYYY format, but then they took this format from Europe because it catered more to the formal spoken rules associated with naming dates. If you ask a British English speaker today’s date, they will say something like that it’s the 1st of January, 2022. The day (1st) comes before the month (January). It all makes sense to use this format. They also write the dates as 01/01/2022. ( See Date Format UK vs US)
7. What is UK Date Format called?
The numerical date format in the UK is called the day-month-year format. Writing in this format will be pretty easy for you if you know how can you write dates in Europe. In this format, you first write the day, followed by the month, and then the year. For example, in this format, you will write the first of January, 2022 as 01/01/22. (See How did the Months get their names?)
8. How are Dates written in Italy?
To formally write the date in Italian, you will follow the day, month, and year format. You will use il, a masculine article before the day, month, and year. You will also not use punctuation in this informal way of writing dates. For example, you will write January 1, 2022, in Italian format as il 1 Gennaio 2022. While writing the date in numeric form, this same date will be written as 1/1/22. For writing the dates, you will not need to learn the Italian way of writing months, but for the formal way, you need to learn the Italian months of the year. (See How many Months of the Year have 28 days?)
9. How do Germans write the Date?
The number version of the date is very similar to the American version. However, German places the day before the month and uses periods rather than slashes. Therefore, March 1, 2022, would be written 01.03.22 in German.
10. How do French write the Date?
The written date format in French is the same as that of other European countries. The format DD/MM/YYYY is used here. Here, DD represents the day, MM represents the month, and YYYY represents the year. You can write January 1, 2022, as 01/01/22. The weeks and months are not capitalized in French. But keep in mind that this is an informal way of writing the date here.
For the formal date format, you write the day, then the date, and then the month. For example, you will write January 2022 Sunday, which will be written as Dimanche Janvier 2022. The French don’t use th or st with numbers. They also don’t use numbers for the first of the month; instead, they use le premier. After learning all this about the French date format, let’s learn which country date format is YYYYMMDD. (Also see How do you say Sea in French?)
11. Which Country Date format is YYYYMMDD?
Besides gathering all information about how can you write dates in Europe, note that countries like South Korea, China, Japan, Taiwan, Iran, and Lithuania use the YYYYMMDD date format. Here, YY stands for the year, which is followed by MM, which stands for month, and finally, DD stands for day. This format is also secondarily used in some Asian and European countries. In this format, January 1, 2022, will be written as 2022-01-01. This date format is also recommended by international standards. (See Why Do We Have Different Time Zones?)
12. How does USA write Dates?
America is one of the few countries that uses the MM-DD-YYYY format. This is a very unique format. Here, the month is written before the day and year. For example, January 1, 2022. According to a hypothesis, the USA borrowed this date format from the UK, which used to use it before the 20th century. Later, the UK changed its date format to match that of Europe.
Now you know how can you write dates in Europe, how can you read European dates, and which country date format is YYYYMMDD. (See What Century are We Living in Now?)
