Date and time notation

In Kawagoeland, date and time notation varies across four official languages.

## Date

The Japanese and Chinese traditionally wrote the dates in Chinese order (year, month, day), while the English and Dutch traditionally wrote the dates in European order (day, month, year).

In Japanese, the standard written form is *year, month, day*. Typically, kanji meaning "year", "month" and "day" are inserted after the numerals, but kanji may be used instead of Arabic numerals. The day of the week is placed after the day of the specific month and is often abbreviated to a single character if it is placed in brackets.

In Mandarin, the standard written form uses the same order as the Japanese.

In English, the standard written form is *day, month, year*. The month is often written in full but it can be abbreviated. The day of the week is placed before the day of the month. A similar rule applies to the Dutch language as well, only the names of weekdays and months are not capitalised (unlike in English).

For all-numeric dates, the recommended format is ISO 8601 (YYYY-MM-DD) to allow all-numeric dates to be read by the Japanese and Chinese, both of which use the Chinese order. However, in written Japanese and Chinese, it is common to use slashes or full stops (periods) instead of the standard dash.

The Gregorian calendar is typically used. The witch councils, vampire councils and schools of magic, however, use dates based on the Kawagoenese witches calendar, which is based on the Japanese imperial calendar, which bases the year on the current era, which began when the current Japanese emperor acceded to the throne. Until 1868, the councils used a calendar era based on the date of the Derenburg witch trials of 1555, known as the Deren era.

Thus, when using the Kawagoenese witches calendar:

* The years 1555 to 1868 are based on the Deren era (Japanese: 出蓮; Mandarin: 出莲), based on the date of the Derenburg witch trials of 1555.
* The years 1868 to 1912 are based on the Meiji era (Japanese: 明治; Mandarin: 明治), based on the reign of Emperor Meiji.
* The years 1912 to 1926 are based on the Taishō era (Japanese: 大正; Mandarin: 大正), based on the reign of Emperor Taishō.
* The years 1926 to 1989 are based on the Shōwa era (Japanese: 昭和; Mandarin: 昭和), based on the reign of Emperor Hirohito.
* The years 1989 to 2019 are based on the Heisei era (Japanese: 平成; Mandarin: 平成), based on the reign of Emperor Akihito.
* Since 2019, the calendar is based on the Reiwa era (Japanese: 令和; Mandarin: 令和), based on the reign of Emperor Naruhito.

English- and Dutch-language papers published by witch councils use years based on the Kawagoenese witches calendar. For example, witch councils who published magazines in 1976 are written as the "Fifty-first Shōwa year" or the "51st Shōwa year" (ordinals may use numerals or be spelled out).

## Time

In situations where the 12-hour clock can cause widespread ambiguities, the 24-hour clock is used (the range is 00:00-23:59). The 24-hour clock is commonly used in public transport, in airports, computer programming, hospitals, sciences, logistics and in the military.

Most people, even Dutch speakers, adopt the 12-hour clock system. Kawagoenese Dutch is the only variety of Dutch that still has the equivalent of a.m. and p.m., which is *v.m.* and *n.m.* respectively.

Most Kawagoenese Japanese speakers use the 12-hour clock. While in Japan the 12-hour clock hours run from 0 to 11, in Kawagoeland, the hours run 12 and then from 1 to 11, due to English influence. For example, while in Japan *12 p.m.* means midnight at the end of the day or 24:00 hours, *12 p.m.* means noon, or 12:00 hours, in Kawagoeland.

Kawagoeland is divided into four time zones (UTC +07:00, +08:00, +09:00, +10:00). The state of Hakone uses UTC+08:00. The Northwestern and Southwestern regions observe daylight saving time while the Eastern region does not.