Calendar - Japanese

Written on March 27, 2011 • Last edit: April 9, 2011
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Reading the year

Year on Japanese coins is the the year of the current emperor's reign followed by his name.
You'll find the year by locating the 年 character which means "year". Over the years, writing direction changed. Hence, the 年 character is left of year on older coins, right on the date on recent coins.

As an example the coin on the right reads "昭和三十六年", which means "year 36 (三十六) of the reign of emperor Shōwa (昭和)", that is 1961.

Converter

How to read a Japanese date

The date lettering usually uses the following scheme: [Emperor name] [Year number] 年. In order to convert to Gregorian year, you need to add the year number to the year before he was enthroned.

Enthronement dates

Emperor	Heisei	Shōwa	Taishō	Meiji
Emperor	平成	昭和	大正	明治
Year	1989	1926	1912	1868

Reading the year

Here is the Japanese figure table:

一	二	三	四	五	六	七	八	九
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9

Numbers greater than 9 write as follow: [tens figure] 十 [unit figure]. If the unit figure is 0, it is not written. Same for the tens figure when its value is 1.
Examples

五十二 = 52
五十 = 50
十八 = 18

Be careful, with older coins (年 left of the date), you must read right to left. For example, 五十二 reads 25.

Conversion examples

昭和二年 means "year 2 of the Shōwa era". Emperor Shōwa was enthroned in 1926. The second year of his reign
is 1926 − 1 + 2 = 1927.

昭三十六四年 means "year 36 of the Shōwa era", that is 1926 − 1 + 36 = 1961

年八十治明 means "year 18 of the Meiji era" (readinf right to left), that is 1868 − 1 + 2 = 1869.