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Gradual adoption of the Gregorian calendarGradual adoption of the Gregorian calendarPosted Mar 7, 2007 9:32 UTC (Wed) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322)In reply to: Dimdows by rahvin Parent article: Switching your Linux systems to the new DST (Linux-Watch)
While several regions and religions (eg. China, Vietnam, Judaism, Islam and various flavours of Christianity) do indeed have a traditional or religious lunar calendar in active use, these are invariably used alongside the Gregorian calendar that was first adopted by the Roman Catholic Church in 1582. The only countries I'm aware of whose *official* calendar is not more-or-less the standard Gregorian one are Ethiopia (which has not changed the calendar it uses for two milennia and still has a leap day every four years without fail), Israel and most Islamic countries (though note that Iran and Afghanistan maintain an official Persian solar calendar for civil purposes which is neither Islamic nor Gregorian). Japan numbers its years from the start of the present Emperor's reign, and the Republic of China counted (and still counts in Taiwan) from its foundation in 1912.
The official adoption of the Gregorian calendar has been gradual -- most countries with Roman Catholic governments converted within a few months of the church itself, while Protestant and Orthodox countries held out for centuries (probably leading to the claim above that the calendar has "been around for 250 years or so"). Denmark and the Protestant parts of Germany switched calendars in 1700, Britain and its possessions in 1752, Russia in 1918, Serbia in 1919, and Greece in 1923.
Many parts of the world had the Gregorian calendar thrust upon them by European colonisers and generally retained it after independence (Israel is the exception which proves the rule, switching from Gregorian to the Jewish lunar calendar on its foundation). Other non-European countries adopted the Western calendar, either for convenience or for the sake of modernity, well after it was in established commercial use -- Japan (more or less) in 1873, China in 1912, Turkey in 1917 (with double-dating until 1926).
All documents are double-dated in Israel. The Islamic countries which use the religious calendar for official purposes necessarily maintain some solar calendar in addition, usually based on the Gregorian one except in Iran and Afghanistan.
> In fact the Gregorian calender probably has the lowest numbers of
That statement is pretty absurd. The only places the Gregorian calendar (or some variant, like counting years differently) isn't used for everyday life are Ethiopia and a few of the most strictly Islamic countries -- and even Iran uses its own solar calendar alongside the Islamic lunar one.
The various lunar calendars are at best difficult, and at times downright impossible, to use for forward planning and international commerce, even with neighbouring countries ostensibly using the same system. The Islamic religious calendar relies on visual observation of each new moon, so it is different depending on longitude, and can't be used to refer accurately to dates even one month in the future as the leap days are unpredictable. Conventional approximations exist, but are not appropriate for religious observance and until a few years ago were inconsistent even between neighbouring Muslim countries. The obvious fallback is the same calendar used for commerce with secular neigbours -- even Iran has those. There is no part of the world that doesn't use the global standard calendar for some purpose.
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