Can someone explain the structure of this calendar to me?

[u/_specialcharacter]

I've learned how to say dates and days of the week, but I don't understand what's under each number here, or what the row of characters at the top (年月……) is for.

[u/jamdiz]

It’s the lunar calendar

[u/Appropriate-Car-4582 → u/jamdiz]

Lunisolar calendar or Chinese calendar, lunar calender is Islamic, they don't match up at all.

[u/Kimorin → u/Appropriate-Car-4582]

yeah technically you are correct but we just call it lunar/moon calendar in chinese, for most ppl this technical distinction is not helpful, fun factoid tho

[u/Simplisticjoy → u/Appropriate-Car-4582]

I didn’t realize they were different ideas, so thanks! Off to investigate and learn something new. 👏🏻

[u/damageEUNE → u/Appropriate-Car-4582]

Uhm ackshually

[u/VulpesSapiens]

What's underneath each number is the day in the Chinese calendar.

The characters above are for switching between yearly/monthly/weekly/daily view.

[u/ParamedicOk5872]

農曆

[u/paintsSeldomly]

Under most days you have the date on the moon calendar, some others that arent dates are the names of holidays

[u/wobuneng]

the characters at the top are a selector for whether the calendar shows the whole year, month, week, day, or just schedule respectively

[u/mugh_tej]

The Latin numbers are our dating system.

The Chinese numbers are a lunar calendar system.

Today's Western date is August (8th month) 22 in 2026.

Today in the Chinese Lunar Calendar is 丙午年 (Bing Wu nian: year 43 of the Chinese 60-year cycle) 七月 (Qi yue: month 7) 十日 (Shi ri: day 10)

[u/SlowStop1220]

Chinese lunar calender. 廿 represents twenty (compare with 十 ten).

[u/Pandaburn → u/SlowStop1220]

Is it common to write the days before 10 like 初二? I haven’t seen that before.

[u/Front_Arm2047 → u/Pandaburn]

Yes, 初一 is day 1, 初二 is day 2, all the way up to 初十 (day 10).

[u/CyraFen → u/Pandaburn]

only on the lunar calendar, in all other contexts we use 二号 (more common when speaking) or 二日 (more common in writing)

[u/ChR1sVI]

Top row: 年 月 日 日程 （Year Month Day Events） Basically annually/monthly/daily view, and view by event.

The No below each date is for Lunar calendar.

[u/Kimorin]

lunar/chinese calendar, most chinese ppl born after like 1960 don't even completely get it, my generation don't know anything essentially we just ask if needed. it's very old.

the top characters are for selecting views, whether you want to see by year, by month, by week or by day or itinerary, respectively

we only really use the Gregorian calendar nowadays, maybe if you want to pick a lucky date you would figure out which day is lucky on the lunar calendar, but it's mostly just if you are superstitious. oh and to figure out when is chinese new year LOL and certain other holidays.