LUNAR CALANDER

A lunar calendar is a calendar based on the monthly cycles of the Moon's phases (synodic

months, lunations), in contrast to solar calendars, whose annual cycles are based only directly on
the solar year. The most commonly used calendar, the Gregorian calendar, is a solar calendar
system that originally evolved out of a lunar calendar system. A purely lunar calendar is also
distinguished from a lunisolar calendar, whose lunar months are brought into alignment with the
solar year through some process of intercalation. The details of when months begin vary from
calendar to calendar, with some using new, full, or crescent moons and others employing
detailed calculations.
Since each lunation is approximately 29+1⁄2 days, it is common for the months of a lunar calendar
to alternate between 29 and 30 days. Since the period of 12 such lunations, a lunar year, is
354 days, 8 hours, 48 minutes, 34 seconds (354.36707 days), purely lunar calendars are 11 to 12
days shorter than the solar year. In purely lunar calendars, which do not make use of
intercalation, like the Islamic calendar, the lunar months cycle through all the seasons of a solar
year over the course of a 33–34 lunar-year cycle.
Although the Gregorian calendar is in common and legal use in most countries, traditional lunar
and lunisolar calendars continue to be used throughout the world to determine religious
festivals and national holidays. Such holidays include Rosh Hashanah (Hebrew
calendar); Easter (the Computus); the Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Mongolian New
Year (Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Mongolian calendars, respectively); the Nepali New
Year (Nepali calendar); the Mid-Autumn Festival and Chuseok (Chinese and Korean
calendars); Loi Krathong (Thai calendar); the Bengali New Year and Durga Puja (Bengali
calendar); Sunuwar calendar; Vesak/Buddha's Birthday (Buddhist calendar); Diwali (Ugaadi,
Navreh, Guddi Padwa) (Hindu calendars); Ramadan, Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha (Islamic
calendar).
The Japanese Calendar formerly used both the lunar and lunisolar calendar before it was replaced
by the Gregorian Calendar during the Meiji government in 1872. Holidays such as the Japanese
New Year were simply transposed on top as opposed to being calculated like other countries that
use the lunisolar and Gregorian calendars together, for example the Japanese New Year now falls
on January 1, creating a month delay as opposed to other East Asian Countries. See customary
issues in modern Japan.

History
A lunisolar calendar was found at Warren Field in Scotland and has been dated to c. 8000 BC,
during the Mesolithic period. Some scholars argue for lunar calendars still earlier—
Rappenglück in the marks on a c. 17,000 year-old cave painting at Lascaux and Marshack in the
marks on a c. 27,000 year-old bone baton—but their findings remain controversial. Scholars have
argued that ancient hunters conducted regular astronomical observations of the Moon back in
the Upper Palaeolithic. Samuel L. Macey dates the earliest uses of the Moon as a time-measuring
device back to 28,000–30,000 years ago.
Start of the lunar month
Lunar and lunisolar calendars differ as to which day is the first day of the month. In some
lunisolar calendars, such as the Chinese calendar, the first day of a month is the day when an
astronomical new moon occurs in a particular time zone. In others, such as some Hindu
calendars, each month begins on the day after the full moon. Others are based on the first
sighting of the lunar crescent, such as the lunar Hijri calendar (and, historically, the Hebrew
calendar).

Length of the lunar month

The length of each lunar cycle varies slightly from the average value. In addition, observations
are subject to uncertainty and weather conditions. Thus to avoid uncertainty about the calendar,
there have been attempts to create fixed arithmetical rules to determine the start of each calendar
month.
The average length of the synodic month is 29.53059 days. Thus it is convenient if months
generally alternate between 29 and 30 days (sometimes termed respectively "hollow" and "full").
The distribution of hollow and full months can be determined using continued fractions, and
examining successive approximations for the length of the month in terms of fractions of a day.