The calendars we use today aren’t just random stacks of papers. They have a lot of history and facts behind everything they display. While going through the calendars you must have noticed how many days in February exists. This month has always been different from the other 11 months of the year. People, in general, aren’t aware of the reason though. Some are even confused if February has 28 days or 29 days. If you are also confused and want to know in actuality how many days are in February or how many days in Feb are in a leap year, then this article will surely help.
1. How many Days are in February?
In the Gregorian calendar, February is the second month of the year. It is also the shortest month of the year. This month can have 28 days in case of common years and 29 days in case of leap years. (See How Many Number of Days in a Month?)
2. Is it 28 or 29 Days in February?
February is the shortest month and according to the Gregorian calendar, this month can have both 28 or 29 days depending on the type of year it falls in. In the case of common years like 2022 February has 28 days whereas in the case of leap years like 2020 the total number of days in this month becomes 29. To know more about it, check out the article, How Many Months Have 28 Days?
3. Is Leap Year every 4 Years?
After learning how many days are in February let’s learn about a leap year.
- You have often heard that leap year happens every 4 years but this thing isn’t in fact true. You may know that the earth orbits around the sun. The earth takes approximately 365.242189 days or 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 45 seconds to complete a revolution around the sun.
- But there are just 365 days in a year in the Gregorian calendar you follow. This means approximately 6 hours aren’t mentioned in this calendar. Thus almost every four years an extra leap day is added to February to compensate for the loss of these 6 hours and also to ensure that the calendar doesn’t get out of sync with the seasons.
- Simple math goes behind deciding if a year will be a leap year or not. A leap year should be divisible by 4. So, in short, leap years don’t happen every 4 years as there are exceptions. For example, the year 1800 or 1900 wasn’t a leap year but the year 2000 was and even the year 2100 won’t be a leap year. Must read What is Revolution and Rotation?
4. How many Days in February Non Leap Year?
After learning about leap year let’s see how many days are in February in a non-leap year. According to the Gregorian calendar, February is the second month of the year. Except for February, the other months of the year usually have 30 or 31 days. On the other hand, February may have 28 or 29 days depending on whether it’s a leap year or not. In a non-leap year, there are 28 days in February. (See How many months is 90 days?)
5. Why does February have 28 Days?
You already know how many days are in February in a non-leap year, now you must be curious to know why February has 28 days. To understand the reason for February having 28 days we have to go back and understand the first Roman Calendar.
- This calendar only had 10 months rather than 12. The Roman King of that time Numa Pompilius added two more months to these original months so that the calendar syncs with the Lunar year. These two months were January and February.
- The previous calendars before this had a total of 304 days where there were 4 months of 31 and 6 months of 30. However, in his calendar, Numa wanted to avoid having month endings with even numbers. This was due to a Roman superstition that believed even numbers to be unlucky.
- To satisfy this superstition, Numa made the 30-day months into 29-day-day months by subtracting one day each from all the 30-day months. After doing this he had 56 more days to work with as the lunar year consists of 355 days. At the end of this process, a problem arose. One month among these 12 months was needed to end with an even number of days.
- If this was not done then the total number of the days in the year will be even as the sum of an even amount of odd numbers is always even. So, Numna finally selected February as the unlucky month to have 28 days as this month was used to host Roman rituals to honor the dead. After this calendar, many other calendars came and a lot of modifications were made but the length of February stuck to 28 days. Also, check out what does 4 score and 7 years ago mean?
6. How many Days in February Leap Year?
In the Gregorian calendar during a leap year, there are 366 days and the number of days in February also increases by a day. So, in a leap year, February has 29 days. (See What Century are We Living in Now?)
7. Why does February have 29 Days in a Leap Year?
As you read how many days are in February in the leap year let’s know the reason behind this. The number of days in a year is determined by the time it takes for the earth to revolve around the sun. It takes your earth approximately 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 45 seconds to complete a revolution around the sun. To keep the calendar simple you just take 365 days as the total number of days in a year. But you can’t overlook these left-out portions of the year as it can result in the calendar going out of sync with seasons.
So, about every four years, the left out 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 45 seconds are added up to about 24 hours or one day and then that day is added to February. Thus during leap years, February has 29 days. (See What is One Trip Around the Sun Called?)
8. How many Days in Feb 2022?
The year 2022 is a non-leap year which means it has just 365 days in total. Thus during this year, the month of February had only 28 days. (See What Year is it actually?)
9. How many Days in Feb 2023?
As you are aware of the facts related to how many days in February 2022, let’s learn the same about 2023. The year 2023 will be a non-leap year as this number isn’t divisible by 4 thus it only has 365 days in total. So, the number of days in February 2023 will be 28. The year after 2023 though will be a leap year with 29 days in total. (See How Long is a Decade and a Century?)
