Do you keep wondering what year is it? Some might find it a very dumb question and would simply tell you the answer according to the international calendar, i.e., 2022. But have you ever wondered how many calendars and timelines we have worldwide in different religions and cultures? Like we have the Gregorian calendar or the Hindu calendar or so on. Throughout this article, you will learn that all other cultures and communities have different dates and years. So, let’s find out what year are we in!
1. What is a Year? How many Days in a Year?
A year is when it takes the Earth to complete one full revolution around the Sun in its fixed orbit. According to astronomers, the time should be 365.2422 days. This period is rounded to 365 days, at a point a new year is welcomed. However, after four years, the additional portion of a day adds up to a day, and this is how a leap year occurs. Must read What is Revolution and Rotation?
As told, one year consists of 365 days and every 4 years there comes a leap year which has 366 days to catch up with the actual revolution speed of the earth on its orbit around the Sun.
2. How many Months in a Year? How many Weeks in a Year?
A typical year is made up of 12 months and 52 weeks. As we know, the 12 months in a year are January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, and December. There are 7 months with 31 days, 4 with 30 days, and February has 28 days, which increases to 29 during a leap year.
The 365 days in a calendar year are divided into 52 weeks. Each week has 7 days. (See How many months is 90 days?)
3. What Year is it actually?
Globally, the Gregorian calendar is the most widely used calendar, which reflects a slight modification to the Julian calendar. From the perspective of the calendar, it seems random that the initial designers chose what they believed to be the year of Jesus’ birth as year 1. People refer to dates using the calendar years since it is the accepted calendar throughout the entire world. This standardization reduces ambiguity. So, according to the standard calendar, we are in 2022. (See What is One Trip Around the Sun Called?)
4. What Year is it scientifically?
The big bang, which occurred roughly 13 billion years ago, might be considered the ideal starting point, although we don’t know the precise date of the event. We don’t even know how the cosmos got started. The only thing we know is which time period our ancestors, who were human-like, evolved into the contemporary man. The standard calendar has extremely high scientific accuracy. This means, the current leap day schedule nearly approximates the duration of a year. According to the Holocene calendar, what year we are in is 12022 HE. The Holocene period started some 12,000 years ago. (See What Century are We Living in Now?)
5. What Year is it technically?
The Gregorian calendar, which is titled after Pope Gregory XIII and was first used in 1582, is used by the vast majority of people in the world today. By strategically using leap years, it avoids calendrical drift, which occurs when the calendar deviates from Earth’s orbit around the sun. So, what year is it? The answer would be 2022 AD, as, in the calendar, the year that Jesus Christ born was in 1 BC. (See How Many Number of Days in a Month?)
6. What is the Year 2022?
The ancient lunar calendar governs China’s holidays, despite the fact that the country currently follows the Gregorian calendar. Therefore, both your country and China are in the year 2022. They commemorate a zodiacal year each year, and 2022 is the year of the tiger. For instance, the tiger is linked to power, adventure, rebelliousness, and unpredictability. (See How Long is a Decade and a Century?)
7. What Year are we in AD or BC?
What year is it in BC? The answer is 2022 AD. We are currently in AD and the BC period is considered before the birth of Jesus Christ. The timeline kind of runs like an integer number line. BC years are the years that seem to move backward. Someone born in 200 BC would grow from 200 to 150 BC and not from 200 to 250. The years kept getting smaller till it reached 1 BC, after which Jesus Christ took birth and the AD timeline started. So, what year are we in? 2022 AD it is! Also, check out what does 4 score and 7 years ago mean?
8. What Year is it without Christianity?
Before I can answer this question, let me state an important fact: a specific standard timeline that everyone agrees to share has never existed at any time in world history. Multiple eras jostled for recognition in the Mediaeval Era and Antiquity. Even to this age, there can be seen multiple timelines existing in various religions and cultures.
If there were no Christianity, Jesus Christ would hold no importance in the Roman province of Judea. He would have been just a local, rebellious preacher of his time. According to that theory, we would certainly not be in 2022. It would be the year 2775 A.C. if the Roman Empire had persisted without the advent of Christianity. Judaism would mark the year 5783 as per the Creation of the World. This could go on and on and you will never find one particular year to settle with. (Also read Why Do We Have Different Time Zones?)
9. What Year are we in the Jewish Calendar?
The dates of various religious events and ceremonies are chosen by Jewish communities all over the world using the Jewish or Hebrew calendar. The Hebrew calendar has years of 353, 354, 355, 383, 384, or 385 days. A typical ordinary year consists of 12 months and 354 days. Leap years are 384 days long and have 13 months. In general, months with odd numbers have 30 days, while those with even numbers often have 29. According to this calendar, it is the year 5781 going on. (See How many Minutes are there in a Year?)
10. What Year is it really on Earth?
Let me tell you that the earth is way too old for human evolution to have first occurred. The earth is as old as the sun. It was created some 13 billion years ago, and so this would be counted as a 13 billion-something year. So, I would certainly not ask what year is it on earth as it does not have a fixed answer! (See How many Solar Systems are there in Universe?)
11. Was there a Zero Year? What happened Year 0?
Would you like to reside in the year 0? Then, how would you calculate your age? Would that even make sense? No, I think. Therefore, history has never had a year zero.
This theory implies that there are 99 years between, for instance, 1 January 50 BC and 1 January 50 AD: 50 years BC and the 49 years prior to 50 AD. In popular usage, the year 1 BC comes before Anno Domini 1 (1 AD), and there is no year 0 in between. (See Date format UK vs US)
12. Is Year 1 a real year?
Yes, year 1 exists, both in AD and BC. Year 1 exists in every other calendar as well. It marks the origin of the timeline from a source reference, like the birth of Jesus Christ in the Gregorian Calendar.
13. When did we start recording Years?
In order to list the years in his Easter table, Dionysius Exiguus created the Anno Domini date system in the year 525. The Diocletian era that had been used in an antique Easter table was replaced with another in an effort to rid it of the commemoration of a dictator who persecuted Christians. (See What does BC stand for in Text? )
So, I hope I answered all the questions pertaining to what year is it. There could be several more calendars and religious timelines to look at but it will just boggle your mind. So, I kept my references to the most popular ones. Now, if anybody asks you what year are we in, just ask, according to which calendar? That person would be taken aback.
