World Calendars
Coptic date today
The calendar of Egypt's Coptic Christians, still used by Egyptian farmers. It grew out of the ancient Egyptian calendar and counts its years from AD 284, in memory of Christians martyred under the Roman emperor Diocletian.
2 Hator 1743 AM
٢ هاتور ١٧٤٣ AM
- In the Gregorian calendar
- Wednesday 11 November 2026
- This day began
- At midnight, as Wednesday 11 November 2026 begins
- This day ends
- At midnight, as Thursday 12 November 2026 begins
- Year 1743 AM began
- Friday 11 September 2026
- Next new year
- Sunday 12 September 2027 (in 305 days)
- This year has
- 366 days in 13 months
- Year 1 began
- 29 August AD 284 (Gregorian calendar counted backwards)
- Who uses it
- Egypt's Coptic churches, and Egyptian farmers, Muslim and Christian
- A year has
- 12 months of 30 days, plus a short month of 5 or 6 days
- Years count from
- AD 284, the year the Roman emperor Diocletian came to power
- Unusual detail
- Coptic Christmas falls on 7 January, as it will until 2100
Next holidays in this calendar
305 days
Nayrouz (Coptic New Year) 1 Tout 1744 AM
12 September 2027 · Coptic
How the Coptic calendar works
Twelve months of 30 days are followed by a short month of 5 days, or 6 in a leap year. A leap year comes every fourth year, as in the Julian calendar, with none of the Gregorian calendar's skipped leap years. The year is also divided into three seasons of four months: Akhet (inundation), Peret (growth) and Shemu (harvest). The Coptic liturgy has prayers for each season.
| No. | Month | Days |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Thout (Arabic Tūt) | 30 |
| 2 | Paopi (Bābah) | 30 |
| 3 | Hathor (Hātūr) | 30 |
| 4 | Koiak (Kyak) | 30 |
| 5 | Tobi (Ṭūbah) | 30 |
| 6 | Meshir (Amshīr) | 30 |
| 7 | Paremhat (Baramhāt) | 30 |
| 8 | Parmouti (Baramūdah) | 30 |
| 9 | Pashons (Bashans) | 30 |
| 10 | Paoni (Baʾūnah) | 30 |
| 11 | Epip (Abīb) | 30 |
| 12 | Mesori (Mesra) | 30 |
| 13 | Pi Kogi Enavot, "the little month" (Nasīʾ) | 5 or 6 |
The year begins on Nayrouz, 1 Thout. On the Julian calendar that is always 29 August, or 30 August before a Julian leap year. Between 1900 and 2099 it falls on 11 September, or 12 September before a Gregorian leap year.
Variants and the method used here
Years are counted in the Era of the Martyrs, written AM for Anno Martyrum. Year 1 began on 1 Thout, 29 August 284, the year the Roman emperor Diocletian came to power; his reign brought the last major persecution of Christians in the empire. From Nayrouz to 31 December, subtract 283 from the Gregorian year to get the Coptic year; from 1 January to Nayrouz, subtract 284.
Dates come from @internationalized/date, an open-source date library, using that epoch and the four-year leap rule. The day changes at midnight. The Ethiopian calendar follows the same arithmetic with a different starting year and month names. There is no year of the Martyrs before 29 August 284: for earlier days the converter counts years backwards from the start of the era.
A short history
The calendar descends from the ancient Egyptian civil year of 365 days, which had no leap day and slipped about one day every four years against the seasons. Ptolemy III proposed a leap day in the Decree of Canopus in 238 BC, but Egyptian priests opposed it. The emperor Augustus imposed the reform in 26 or 25 BC, and the first leap day was added in 22 BC. The result was called the Alexandrian calendar, and later the Coptic calendar.
The Church of Alexandria began numbering years from Diocletian in its Easter tables in the 4th century, and the Coptic Orthodox Church has kept the era since the 5th century. In 525 Dionysius Exiguus replaced it with Anno Domini. Today the Coptic Orthodox and Coptic Catholic churches use the calendar, and so do Egyptian farmers, Muslim and Christian. Copts keep Christmas on 29 Koiak, which is 7 January on the Gregorian calendar until 2100, and calculate Easter as the Orthodox churches do. Nayrouz commemorates the martyrs, and the red dates linked with the month of Thout stand for their blood. Egypt used the calendar for fiscal purposes until it adopted the Gregorian calendar on 11 September 1875, 1 Thout 1592 AM.
Sources
How this site calculates the date: Coptic calendar of the Coptic Orthodox Church, years of the Era of the Martyrs (from AD 284).