Chinese New Year is the main holiday of the year for more than one quarter of the world's population. Although the People's Republic of China uses the Gregorian calendar for civil purposes, a special Chinese calendar is used for determining festivals. Various Chinese communities around the world also use this calendar. At right, a large dragon lantern glows at a festival for Chinese New Year at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial. Taipei, Taiwan.

The beginnings of the Chinese calendar can be traced back to the 14th century B.C.E. Legend has it that the Emperor Huangdi invented the calendar in 2637 B.C.E.

The Chinese calendar is based on exact astronomical observations of the longitude of the sun and the phases of the moon. This means that principles of modern science have had an impact on the Chinese calendar.

The Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar. In China, the traditional calendar is known as the "agricultural calendar" (pinyin: nónglì) while the Gregorian calendar is known as the "common calendar" (pinyin: gōnglì) or "Western calendar" . Another name for the Chinese calendar is the "Yin Calendar" (pinyin: yīnlì) in reference to the lunar aspect of the calendar, whereas the Gregorian calendar is the "Yang Calendar" (pinyin: yánglì) in reference to its solar properties. The Chinese calendar was also called the "old calendar" (pinyin: jìulì) after the "new calendar" (pinyin: xīnlì), i.e. the Gregorian calendar, was adopted as the official calendar. The traditional calendar is also often referred to as "the Xia Calendar", following a comment in the Shiji which states that under Xia Dynasty, the year began on the second moon after the winter solstice (just as in the modern calendar).

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