Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year 2011 is falling on February 3. The Chinese New Year is celebrated as the symbol of spring's celebration. In fact, in China it is still called the Spring festival. It is celebrated after the fall harvest and before the spring planting season. The date of the Chinese New Year is always changing and is dependant on the Chinese calendar. Emperor Huangdi in the year 2637 B.C.E invented the Chinese calendar.

The Chinese calendar is a combined solar/lunar calendar and is somewhat similar to the Chinese calendar. For the purpose of determining the dates of the Chinese New Year some
astronomical calculations need to be taken care of. Firstly, we need to determine the dates for the new moon. The new moon is the black moon that is when the moon is in conjunction with the sun.
The date of the new moon is taken as the first day of the new month. Secondly those dates are determined when the sun's longitude is the multiple of 30 degrees. These dates are termed as Principal terms and are used for determining the number of each month.

The Principle term 1 takes place when the sun's longitude is 330 degrees, the 2nd Principle term occurs when the sun's longitude is about 0 degrees. The principle term 3 takes place when the sun's longitude is 30 degrees, the principle term 11 occurs when

the sun's longitude is 270 degrees and the principle term 12 occurs when the sun's longitude is 300 degrees.

The current 60-year cycle in the Chinese calendar started on 2nd February 1984. Given below are some dates for the past Chinese New Year and the future Chinese New Year.