Chinese Lunar Calendar

Two oracle bones, Shang Dynasty in China (c. 1800 - 1200 BCE)
Evidence from the Shang oracle bone inscriptions shows that at least by the 14th century BC the Shang Chinese had established the solar year at 365 1/4 days and lunation at 29 1/2 days. In the calendar that the Shang used, the seasons of the year and the phases of the Moon were all supposedly accounted for.

The Chinese New Year has a great history.  Also know as the Spring Festival or the Festival of Fifteen Days, it has the longest chronological record in history dating from the time of Emperor Hu Huang Ti's rule in 2600 BC.

The Chinese Lunar calendar is based on cycles of the moon.  Due to this cyclical dating, the beginning of the New Year falls on a date between late January to mid-February.  A complete lunar cycle takes sixty years and is composed of five cycles with twelve years in each.  Each of the twelve-year segments in the Chinese lunar calendar is named after an animal.  According to legend, Lord Buddha invited the animal kingdom to him before departing from earth.  However, only twelve came to bid him farewell and, as a reward to them, Buddha named the years after each one in the order they arrived.  It was later believed that the animal ruling the year in which a person is born is the “the animal that hides in your heart? The year 2003 is the year of the goat, and New Year's Day falls on 1st February.

Here are a link to some facts on Chinese New Year, including the maths behind the calendar system and how to compute when the new year is.  Note that Chinese calendar as we know it today is designed by Adam Schall ( 1591-1666 ), Imperial astronomer in Beijing. And contrary to most people belief that Chinese use lunar calendar, it is actually lunisolar calendar, based on both the revolution of moon and the sun.

Associate Professor Helmer Aslaksen, Department of Mathematics, NUS, Singapore has the full details here:

http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/calendar/chinese.shtml


From the Han dynasty, some scholars tried to reconstruct the ancient Chinese chronology, and it became customary to claim that the first calendar was invented by the Yellow Emperor in 2637 BCE during the 61st year of his reign. Although most historians believed that the Yellow Emperor is merely a legend and never existed, some people claimed that the emperor did exist, but he was an extraterrestrial from the constellation of Leo, which is 72.4 light years away.

http://www.mystae.com/streams/ufos/emperor.html

The Theory of Chinese Lunar Calendar:

http://www.chinesefortunecalendar.com/clc/LunarCalendar.htm