Leap year most years that are multiples of 4 are leap years. In each leap year, the month of February has 29 days instead of 28. Adding one extra day in the calendar every four years compensates for the fact that a period of 365 days is shorter than a tropical year by almost 6 hours. Some exceptions to this basic rule are required since the duration of a tropical year is slightly less than 365.25 days. The Gregorian reform modified the Julian calendar's scheme of leap years as follows: Over a period of four centuries, the accumulated error of adding a
Bissextus ecclesiastical calendars, the intercalary day is added for convenience at the end of the month of February, as February 29, and years in which February has twenty-nine days are called "bissextile," or leap years. Bissextus Bissext, or bissextus (Lat. "bis", twice; "sextus", sixth) is the day which is added to the Gregorian calendar every fourth year (except those evenly divisible by 100, unless they are divisible by 400) to compensate for the six-hour difference in length between the common 365-day year and the actual length of the solar year. Originally, the day was inserted after the 24th of February, i.e.