Go to Renku Home. This page is under construction. Explanatory text will be added, but for the moment, here is the table of the seasons. Since lunar months and solar years do not coincide, the actual beginning of the each lunar month varied from year to year. Note that the Japanese names for the months listed here are only some of the more popular literary names.
Most lunar months have two or three names.
The New Year was formerly considered to be the first half of the first month of spring, and many phenomena of early spring were associated with the New Year. When the Gregorian calendar was adopted, Japanese traditionalists compromised and moved the New Year to coincide with the beginning of January in the new calendar. Go to Renku Home. Page last updated 25 May 2000.