February 29 takes approximately 6 hours longer than 365 whole days. A leap day compensates for this lag, realigning the calendar with the Earth's position in the Solar System; otherwise, seasons would occur later than intended in the calendar year. The Julian calendar used in Christendom until the 16th century added a leap day every four years; but this rule adds too many days (roughly 3 every 400 years), making the equinoxes and solstices shift gradually to earlier dates. By the 16th century the vernal equinox had drifted to March 11, and the Gregorian calendar was introduced both to shift it back
Chinese calendar (, 29 days); stem branches for the first, eleventh, and 21st days, and the date, stem branch and time of the solar terms. The traditional Chinese calendar was developed between 771 and 476 BC, during the Spring and Autumn period of the Eastern Zhou dynasty. Before the Zhou dynasty, solar calendars were used. One version of the solar calendar is the five-elements calendar (), which derives from the Wu Xing. A 365-day year was divided into five phases of 73 days, with each phase corresponding to a Wu Xing element. A phase began with a governing-element day (), followed by