Minguo calendar

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A calendar that commemorates the first year of the Republic as well as the election of Sun Yat-sen as the provisional President.

The Republic of China calendar (民國紀元) is the method of numbering years currently used in the Republic of China (Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu). It was used in mainland China from 1912 until the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

Following the Imperial tradition of using the sovereign's era name and year of reign, official ROC documents use the Republic (Chinese: 民國; pinyin: míngúo; literally "The Country of the People") system of numbering years in which the first year (民國元年) was 1912, the year of the founding of the Republic of China. For example, 2007 is the "96th year of the Republic" (民國九十六年, 民國96年, or simply 96). As Chinese era names are traditionally two characters long, 民國 (Republic) is employed as an abbreviation of 中華民國 (Republic of China).

To find out the ROC year equivalent to any C.E. year, subtract the C.E. year by 1911 (the year of the revolution which led to the formation of the ROC). For example: 2007 C.E. - 1911 = 96th year of the Republic.

Months and days are numbered according to the Gregorian calendar. Based on Chinese National Standard CNS 7648: Data Elements and Interchange Formats -- Information Interchange -- Representation of Dates and Times, (similar to ISO 8601), year numbering may use the A.D. system as well as the ROC era. For example, May 3, 2004 may be written 2004-05-03 or R.O.C.93-05-03.

The ROC era numbering happens to be the same as the numbering used by the Juche calendar of North Korea, because its founder, Kim Il-sung, was born in 1912. The years in Japan's Taishō period (July 30, 1912 to December 25, 1926) are also coincident with the ROC era.

[edit] Arguments for and against

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The original intention was to follow the Chinese culture of name the years according to the years of the Emperor, which with the lack of Christianity's (BC before Christ) universal appeal back then, were the universally recognizable events in China. However following the establishment of the Republic, hence the lack of a Emperor, it was then decided to use the year of the establishment of the nation. Noting that this reduces the issue of frequent change in the calendar, as no Emperor has ruled more than 60 years in history.

The use of the ROC era system extends beyond official documents. When used to mark expiration dates on products for export, they can be misunderstood as having an expiration date 11 years earlier than intended. Misinterpretation is more likely in the cases when the prefix (R.O.C. or 民國) is omitted. One might imagine getting locked in a misprogrammed vault for 11 years or other disasters.

See also: Y1C Problem.

Some feel that the Minguo calendar is a waste, and Taiwan should fully adopt the Western calendar, to standardize with the international community.

Others perhaps would regret loss of national identity.

There have been legislative proposals to abolish the Republican calendar in favor of the Gregorian calendar[1].

[edit] Comparison chart

ROC era	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
AD	1912	1913	1914	1915	1916	1917	1918	1919	1920	1921
ROC era	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
AD	1922	1923	1924	1925	1926	1927	1928	1929	1930	1931
ROC era	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30
AD	1932	1933	1934	1935	1936	1937	1938	1939	1940	1941
ROC era	31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40
AD	1942	1943	1944	1945	1946	1947	1948	1949	1950	1951
ROC era	41	42	43	44	45	46	47	48	49	50
AD	1952	1953	1954	1955	1956	1957	1958	1959	1960	1961
ROC era	51	52	53	54	55	56	57	58	59	60
AD	1962	1963	1964	1965	1966	1967	1968	1969	1970	1971
ROC era	61	62	63	64	65	66	67	68	69	70
AD	1972	1973	1974	1975	1976	1977	1978	1979	1970	1981
ROC era	71	72	73	74	75	76	77	78	79	80
AD	1982	1983	1984	1985	1986	1987	1988	1989	1990	1991
ROC era	81	82	83	84	85	86	87	88	89	90
AD	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001
ROC era	91	92	93	94	95	96	97	98	99	100
AD	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011