Date and time notation in Asia


Post-Soviet states

Date

In the Post-Soviet states DD.MM.YYYY format is used with dot as a separator.

Time

24-hour time notation is used officially and for purposes that require precision like announcements in the media. In colloquial speech 12-hour clock is used.

Greater Arabia

Greater China

Date

The date format follows the Chinese hierarchical system, which has traditionally been big-endian. Consequently, it correlates with ISO 8601 — year first, month next, and day last. A leading zero is optional in practice, but is mostly not used. Chinese characters that mean year, month, and day are often used as separators. Since the characters clearly label the date, the year may be abbreviated to two digits when this format is used.
An exception to this guideline is in Taiwan, where a separate calendar system is used, with years numbered to the founding of the Republic of China in 1912. Thus, the year 2006 corresponds to the "95th year of the Republic". In official contexts, this system is always used, while the Gregorian calendar is sometimes used in informal contexts. To avoid confusion, the Gregorian year is always written out in full in Taiwan. For example, 95.01.29 refers to 2006-01-29, not 1995-01-29. Another means to distinguish between the two systems is to place the terms Gōngyuán and Mínguó before the year. For example: 2006 is rendered as either 公元2006年 or 民國95年.
The day of the week is often appended to the date and commonly enclosed in parentheses, such as 2006年1月29日.
In speech, the date is spoken in the same format as it is written.

Hào is a colloquial term used to express the day of the month instead of rì. It can also be used by news presenters in Chinese language, but is rarely used in formal writing.

Hào is more often used when the month is understood from the context, i.e.: c=29號 for the 29th.
In informal speech, Chinese speakers expressing the date only with month and day may neglect hào /rì when the number of the day is more than ten, i.e.: 1月29號/1月29日 will sometimes be spoken like 1月29, but 1月9號/1月9日 will not be simplified to 1月9.
Dates written in Hong Kong and Macau are often formatted in the DD.MM.YYYY style due to European influences. Nonetheless, the Chinese form of the dates is still read in the same way as described above. Visas for the People's Republic of China also conform to this format.

Time

It is not uncommon to see Chinese numerals instead of Arabic numbers, but tourist attractions will usually use Arabic numerals for the convenience of foreigners.
Chinese characters that mean hour and minute are sometimes used instead of the standard colon, as in c=19時45分, literally "nineteen hours, forty-five minutes".
p=Diǎn is a variation of p=shí and typically used in speech and often in informal writing, such as c=19點.
p=Zhèng or p=zhěng is used after p=shí to mean exactly on the hour, like c=19時正/19時整 meaning "[exactly] 19:00" or "19 o'clock ".
p=Zhōng, which literally means "clock", can be added to a time phrase, usually to mean on the hour or a time period of minutes.
If the minutes of a given time are less than ten, the preceding zero is included in speech. The time 08:05 would be read as p=bādiǎn língwǔfēn, similar to how English speakers would describe the same time as "eight oh-five".
Both the 12-hour and 24-hour notations are used in spoken and written Chinese. To avoid confusion, time on schedules and public notices are typically formatted in the 24-hour system, so the times 19:45 and 07:45 are understood to be 12 hours apart from each other. Spoken Chinese predominantly uses the 12-hour system and follows the same concept as A.M. and P.M.. However, these clarifying words precede the time. For example, 19:45 would be written as c=下午7:45 or t=下午7點45分. Time written in the 24-hour system can be read as is, so c=19:45 is read as p=shíjiǔdiǎn sìshíwǔfēn.
A sample of other phrases that are often used to better describe the time-frame of day are listed below:
  • 03:00
  • * t=淩晨3點
  • *t=淩晨3點鐘
  • 19:00
  • * t=晚上7點
  • * t=晚上7點鐘
Time can alternatively be expressed as a fraction of the hour. A traditional Chinese unit of time, the p=kè, was 1/96 of the 24-hour day, equivalent mathematically to 15 minutes and semantically to the English "quarter of an hour". A quarter-after is thus p=yī kè or p=guò yī kè. A quarter-to is p=chà yī kè, or more commonly, p=sān kè. "At the half-hour" is described using p=bàn, which means half.
  • 6:45
  • *t=6點三刻
  • *t=7點差一刻; or t=差一刻7點
  • 8:15
  • *t=8點一刻
  • 9:30
  • *t=9點半
Attention must be drawn to the time 02:00. It is written as p=èr shí but is almost always read as p=liǎng diǎn. The number two, p=èr, takes the form of p=liǎng when followed by a measure word, in this case, p=diǎn. Note that this does not apply to either 12:00. Noon is p=shí èr diǎnzhōng ; p=zhèngwǔ ; or p=wǔshí. Midnight, on the other hand, is p=língchén shí èr diǎnzhōng or p=língdiǎn/língshí.
Cantonese has an additional method of expressing time as a fraction of the hour. This system divides the hour into 12 units, each five minutes long. Each unit, therefore, corresponds to one of the numbers written on an analogue clock. The character for this unit is uncertain since it is only used in speech, however the Cantonese pronunciation is j=ji6 and homonymous to the Mandarin pronunciation of 字, p=zì. This method can be used in two ways - with the relative hour and without. When the relative hour is included, the unit must be preceded with the measure word 個. Example: 3:05 is 3點1個字, usually simply 3點1. When the relative hour is not included, the unit is omitted as well; the position of the minute hand is described instead, using the verb 踏, which literally means "step on", meaning "resting on top of" in this context. Examples:
The half-hour mark is never described using this unit of five minutes, however. 3:30 is still 3點半, as previously described. Half-past the hour is 踏半.

India, Pakistan and Bangladesh

Iran

Japan

05-09-2023

Korea

Mongolia

Nepal

Southeast Asia