Century

A century is a period of 100 years. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word century comes from the Latin centum, meaning one hundred. Century is sometimes abbreviated as c.[1]

"Centuries" and "Centenary" redirect here. For other uses, see Century (disambiguation), Centuries (disambiguation), and Centenary (disambiguation).

A centenary is a hundredth anniversary, or a celebration of this, typically the remembrance of an event which took place a hundred years earlier.

Start and end of centuries

Although a century can mean any arbitrary period of 100 years, there are two viewpoints on the nature of standard centuries. One is based on strict construction, while the other is based on popular perception.

According to the strict construction, the 1st century AD began with 1 AD and ended with 100 AD, with the same pattern continuing onward.[note 1] In this model, the n-th century starts with the year that ends with "01", and ends with the year that ends with "00". Because of this, a century will only include one year, the centennial year, that starts with the century's number (e.g. 1900 was the last year of the 19th century).[2]

In popular perception and practice, centuries are often structured by grouping years based on their shared digits. In this model, the 'n' -th century starts with the year that ends in "00", and ends with the year ending in "99".[3] For example, the 20th century would be regarded as from 1900 to 1999, inclusive. This is sometimes known as the odometer effect. The astronomical year numbering and ISO 8601 systems both contain a year zero, so the first century begins with the year zero, rather than the year one.

Strict vs Popular usage
Year 2 BC 1 BC 1 2 ... 99 100 101 102 ... 199 200 201 202 ... 1899 1900 1901 1902 ... 1999 2000 2001 2002 ... 2099 2100 2101 2102 ...
Strict 1st century BC 1st century 2nd century 3rd century ... 19th century 20th century 21st century 22nd century ...
Popular 1st century BC 1st century 2nd century 3rd century ... 19th century 20th century 21st century 22nd century ...

Alternative naming systems

Informally, years may be referred to in groups based on the hundreds part of the year. In this system, the years 1900–1999 are referred to as the nineteen hundreds (1900s). Aside from English usage, this system is used in Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Finnish and Hungarian. The Swedish nittonhundratalet (or 1900-talet), Danish nittenhundredetallet (or 1900-tallet), Norwegian nittenhundretallet (or 1900-tallet), Finnish tuhatyhdeksänsataaluku (or 1900-luku) and Hungarian ezerkilencszázas évek (or 1900-as évek) refer unambiguously to the years 1900–1999.

Italian also has a similar system, but it only expresses the hundreds and omits the word for “thousand”. This system mainly functions from the 11th to the 20th century:

il Quattrocento (that is “the four hundred”, the 15th century)
il Cinquecento (that is “the five hundred”, the 16th century).

These terms are often used in other languages when referring to the history of Italy.

Similar dating units in other calendar systems

While the century has been commonly used in the West, other cultures and calendars have utilized differently sized groups of years in a similar manner. The Hindu calendar, in particular, summarizes its years into groups of 60,[4] while the Aztec calendar considers groups of 52.[5]

See also

Notes
  1. AD and CE year numbering, which are numerically equivalent, are now commonly used to number years, including those which occurred before these notations were invented; AD did not become widespread in Europe until early in the 2nd millennium.

References
  1. "Oxford English Dictionary – List of Abbreviations".
  2. "When Did the 21st Century Start?". timeanddate.com. Retrieved 23 November 2020.
  3. "century". Oxford Dictionaries. Retrieved 20 January 2021.
  4. "www.vedavidyalaya.com". Archived from the original on 17 December 2013. Retrieved 4 September 2013.
  5. "www.aztec-history.com". Retrieved 4 September 2013.

Bibliography
  • The Battle of the Centuries, Ruth Freitag, U.S. Government Printing Office. Available from the Superintendent of Documents, P.O. Box 371954, Pittsburgh, PA 15250- 7954. Cite stock no. 030-001-00153-9. Retrieved 3 March 2019.
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