Japan's 72 Microseasons (Shichijūni-kō) 2027
All dates, names and meanings, with a free printable PDF

Dates: calculated from the sun's position and checked against NAOJ data (Japan Standard Time) / Last updated: November 2, 2026

The 72 microseasons (七十二候, shichijūni-kō) divide the traditional Japanese year into periods of about five days. Each has a short, poetic name, such as “East wind melts the ice” or “First cherry blossoms,” that describes a typical change in nature at that time of year. This page lists when each of the 72 microseasons begins in 2027, from January 1 to December 31.

This is a traditional seasonal calendar, shared here as part of Japanese culture. The names describe the seasons in Japan in general; actual weather, flowers and wildlife vary from place to place and year to year. Nothing on this page predicts events or gives advice.

日本語のページ: 2027年の暦（六曜・二十四節気・祝日）

What are the 72 microseasons?

The old Japanese calendar divides the year into 24 solar terms (二十四節気, nijūshi sekki) of about 15 days each, based on the position of the sun. Each solar term is split again into three microseasons, or kō: the first (初候, shokō), the second (次候, jikō) and the last (末候, makkō). Twenty-four times three makes 72.

The system came to Japan from China. In the late 17th century, the calendar scholar Shibukawa Harumi rewrote many of the names to suit Japan's climate, plants and animals, and the Hōreki calendar (1755) revised some of them again. The names used today are the ones printed in the Ryakuhon-reki (略本暦), the abridged official almanac issued from 1874 (Meiji 7).

A few names are images rather than facts. “Rotting grass becomes fireflies” (#26) reflects an old belief, and the calendar keeps it as a picture of early summer.

2027 at a glance: the 24 solar terms

The first microseason of each solar term begins at the same moment as the term itself. These times are the official values published by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), in Japan Standard Time.

All 72 microseasons in 2027

Each date is the day a microseason begins in Japan Standard Time (JST, UTC+9). It lasts until the next one begins, usually five days later. Numbers count from Risshun, the beginning of spring (#1), the traditional start of the cycle.

The times for the first microseason of each solar term, and for #26 (Nyūbai) and #30 (Hangeshō), are NAOJ's published values. The others are calculated in the same way and rounded to the minute (see below). #66 begins at 01:27 on January 1; until then, #65 (from late December 2026) is still in effect.

How the dates are calculated

Before 1844, Japanese calendars split the year into 72 equal parts of time. The Tenpō calendar of 1844 began setting the solar terms by the sun's actual position and stopped giving each microseason its own date. From 1874 to 1884, the Ryakuhon-reki printed the three names together under each solar term. (Under the Tenpō calendar, Hangeshō, #30, was the one microseason that still had its own date.) Today there is no official list of microseason dates, so calendars follow different rules.

This page uses the astronomical rule: a microseason begins on the day (in JST) when the sun's apparent ecliptic longitude reaches a multiple of 5°. Risshun is at 315°, so microseason #1 begins at 315°, #2 at 320°, #3 at 325°, and so on around the year. NAOJ uses the same rule for two seasonal days in its almanac: Nyūbai, the calendar start of the rainy season (80°, the same moment as #26), and Hangeshō (100°, the same moment as #30).

How we checked

• We compared all 72 start times for 2027 with two independent sources: the calculator on Koyomi no Page, which uses the same 5° rule, and NASA JPL's Horizons ephemeris. All 72 dates matched both, and the times differed by 1 minute at most (checked on November 2, 2026).
• For Nyūbai (#26) and Hangeshō (#30), the table uses NAOJ's published times for 2027. Our own calculation agrees with them to within 1 minute.
• The same calculation reproduces NAOJ's published solar-term times for 2004–2027 (576 values) to within 1 minute. These checks run automatically every time the site is rebuilt.

Why other calendars may differ by a day

Some calendars instead count 5 and 10 days from the start of each solar term. In 2027, 6 of the 48 second and last microseasons fall on a different day under that rule:

• #24 麦秋至 (Wheat and barley ripen): Jun 1 here, May 31 by counting days
• #29 菖蒲華 (Irises bloom): Jun 27 here, Jun 26 by counting days
• #30 半夏生 (Crow-dipper sprouts): Jul 2 here, Jul 1 by counting days
• #33 鷹乃学習 (Young hawks learn to fly): Jul 18 here, Jul 17 by counting days
• #42 禾乃登 (Rice ripens): Sep 3 here, Sep 2 by counting days
• #57 金盞香 (Fragrant narcissus bloom): Nov 17 here, Nov 18 by counting days

The dates are for Japan. In the Americas or Europe, the same moment can fall on the previous day in local time.

Names and the version used

• Names and readings follow NAOJ's Koyomi Wiki (the column for the Hōreki calendar of 1755 and later), which is the list also printed in the Ryakuhon-reki. We also checked all 72 names against the Ryakuhon-reki list on Japanese Wikipedia.
• Readings differ slightly between sources. We follow NAOJ's readings.
• Romaji uses the Hepburn system, with long vowels marked (ō, ū).
• English: the short lines are our own translations. They aim for the meaning rather than a word-for-word rendering. The English was drafted with the help of AI, translated back into Japanese to check the meaning, and compared with the Japanese sources.

Frequently asked questions

When does the first microseason of 2027 begin?

Counting from Risshun, microseason #1, “East wind melts the ice” (東風解凍), begins on February 4, 2027, at 10:46 JST. The first microseason to begin in the calendar year is #66, “Wheat and barley sprout under the snow,” on January 1.

Why do the dates change from year to year?

They follow the sun, not the calendar. A year is about 365.24 days long, so each moment comes about six hours later every year and moves back after a leap day. That is why a microseason can begin a day earlier or later than in other years.

Are the Japanese and Chinese 72 microseasons the same?

The framework is the same, but many names differ. In NAOJ's table, 52 of the 72 Japanese names differ from the older Chinese list. For example, the Chinese “Otters lay out their fish” became the Japanese “Rain moistens the soil” (#4).

Is this fortune-telling?

No. The microseasons describe seasonal changes in nature. They make no predictions about people or events.

Can I print or share the PDF?

Yes. It is free for personal use. If you share it, please link to this page rather than uploading the file elsewhere, so that people get the corrected version if we fix an error.

When will the next year's dates be ready?

NAOJ publishes the official almanac for each year in February of the year before. We then prepare the new dates and update this page in the autumn.