The Japanese era calendar scheme is a common calendar scheme used in Japan, which identifies a year by the combination of the Japanese era name (年号, nengō?, lit. year name, Chinese: niánhào) and the year number within the era. For example, the year 2012 is Heisei 24. As elsewhere in East Asia, the use of nengō, also known as "gengō" (元号?), was originally derived from Chinese Imperial practice, although the Japanese system is independent of the Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese era-naming systems. Unlike some of these other similar systems, Japanese era names are still in use. Government offices usually require era names and years for official papers.
The four era names used since the end of the Edo period in 1868 can be abbreviated by taking the first letter of their romanized names. For example, S55 means Shōwa 55 (i.e. AD 1980), and H22 stands for Heisei 22 (AD 2010). At 64 years, Shōwa is the longest era to date.
Read more about Japanese Era Name: Overview, Periods Without Era Names, Unofficial Era Name System
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