Ethiopian calendar

Every educated resident of Ethiopia will tell you without hesitation that now is not 2021, but 2014. Moreover, there are not 12 months in this country, and new days are counted here not after midnight. Today we will talk about how tourists do not get confused in the Ethiopian calendar and why this country has such an original time base.

If most of the countries of the world, including Russia, today live according to the Gregorian calendar, then Ethiopia uses its own Ethiopian calendar, which is based on the ancient Coptic (or Alexandrian) calendar, and also has some features of the Julian calendar.

In the Ethiopian calendar, not 12, as in the usual Gregorian, but 13 months. Each month has 30 days, except for the last, 13th month, which has 5 or 6 days, depending on whether it is a leap year or not. The names of the months themselves also do not coincide with the Gregorian calendar and sound differently in Coptic and Amharic languages, the latter of which is the state language of Ethiopia.

Ethiopian New Year is also not so simple. The beginning of the new year here falls on August 29 or August 30 according to the Julian calendar. If the next year is a leap year, it will start on August 30, and the regular year will start on August 29. But if this date is transferred to the Gregorian calendar familiar to us, then the Ethiopian New Year will come on September 11 or 12.

In addition, Ethiopia has adopted a different date for the Annunciation – an important event for all Christians, which, according to Ethiopians’ estimates, happened 8 years later. Therefore, the chronology in Ethiopia differs from most countries by 8 or 7.5 years, depending on the season. For example, now in Ethiopia 2014, which began in September.

And even in matters of the beginning of a new day, the Ethiopians turned out to be great originals. If the whole world counts the beginning of a new day from midnight, then in Ethiopia this moment coincides with the sunrise. The territory of Ethiopia belongs to the time zone in which East African time is accepted (which, by the way, coincides with Moscow time). And the official time in government agencies and transport companies in the country is counted precisely by this time. But in other spheres of life, the inhabitants of Ethiopia use their own time, according to which a new day begins after sunrise. For example, 1:00 am local time corresponds to 7:00 am ET, with noon local time being identified with sunrise and midnight with sunset. This dual system of time often confuses tourists, so when going to Ethiopia, practice determining the correct time in advance.

The only thing that can console travelers is that the country does not switch to summer time, so there will be no difficulties with this. Ethiopia, located close to the equator, does not experience problems due to changes in the length of the day and night during the year, so it does not move the clock with the onset of the off-season.