Century leap year was introduced in 1582, but was adopted by various countries over several centuries, with the result that some countries still used the older Julian calendar while others used the Gregorian calendar. Dates prior to 1582 are generally calculated using the Julian calendar, and different countries have different conventions about dates between 1582 and their adoption of the Gregorian calendar. (See, for example, Old Style and New Style dates.) Century leap year In the Gregorian calendar, a year ending in "00" that is divisible by 400 is a century leap year, with the intercalation of February 29 yielding 366 days instead
Leap year leap day "every" four years amounts to about three extra days. The Gregorian calendar therefore drops three leap days every 400 years, which is the length of its "leap cycle". This is done by dropping February 29 in the three century years (multiples of 100) that cannot be exactly divided by 400. The years 1600, 2000 and 2400 are leap years, while 1700, 1800, 1900, 2100, 2200 and 2300 are common years. By this rule, the average number of days per year is 365 + − + = 365.2425. The rule can be applied to years before the Gregorian reform