Lunar calendar 2026 and 2027

A lunar month, from one new moon to the next, averages 29.53 days and can run from about 29.2 to 29.9. Twelve of them add up to 354 days, eleven short of a solar year, so a calendar that follows the Moon alone drifts against the seasons. The Islamic calendar is the best-known purely lunar one: its months start with the sighting of the crescent, and its festivals move through the seasons over about 33 years.

Lunisolar calendars keep both rhythms. The Chinese, Hebrew and Hindu calendars all add a leap month in some years, seven in every nineteen years in the Chinese and Hebrew systems, so the months stay near their seasons. Chinese New Year falls on the new moon that lands between 21 January and 20 February.

The Gregorian calendar used for civil life ignores the Moon completely, which is why a phase falls on a different date every year. The moments here are the exact instants the Moon and Sun reach the angles that define each phase.

In astrology the new moon is the start of a cycle and the full moon its culmination, with the quarters as the turning points between. People use the calendar to time intentions, reviews and rest, which works as a planning habit whether or not the Moon has any effect.

The Moon moves through one zodiac sign about every two and a half days, so the sign shown beside a phase is the sign the Moon is in at that exact moment. A new moon shares the Sun's sign, and a full moon sits opposite it.

Eclipses are marked because they are new and full moons near a lunar node. Astrologers treat them as stronger versions of the same phases, and the eclipses page has the type, visibility and a traditional reading for each.