Korean Calendar - History

History

The traditional calendar designated its years via Korean era names from 270 to 963. Then Chinese era name with Korean era names were used few times until 1894. In 1894-1895, The lunar calendar was used with years numbered from the foundation of the Joseon Dynasty in 1392.

The Gregorian calendar was adopted on 1 January 1896, with Korean era name "Geonyang(건양/建陽, "adopting solar calendar")".

From 1945 until 1961 in South Korea, Gregorian calendar years were counted from the foundation of Gojoseon in 2333 BCE (regarded as year one), the date of the legendary founding of Korea by Dangun, hence these Dangi (단기/檀紀) years were 4278 to 4294. This numbering was informally used with the Korean lunar calendar before 1945 but is only occasionally used today and mostly used in North Korea.

In North Korea, the Juche calendar has been used since 1997 to number its years, based on the birth of Kim Il Sung.

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