See also: Date and time representation by country.
In the Post-Soviet states DD.MM.YYYY format is used with dot as a separator.
24-hour time notation is used officially and for purposes that require precision like announcements in the media. In colloquial speech 12-hour clock is used.
See also: Date and time notation in Bahrain.
The date format follows the Chinese hierarchical system, which has traditionally been big-endian. Consequently, it correlates with ISO 8601 — year first, month next, and day last (e.g. Chinese: 2006-01-29). A leading zero is optional in practice, but is mostly not used. Chinese characters that mean year, month, and day are often used as separators (e.g. Chinese: 2006年1月29日). Since the characters clearly label the date, the year may be abbreviated to two digits when this format is used.
The exception to this guideline is in Taiwan, where a separate calendar system is used, with years numbered to the founding of the Republic of China in 1912. Thus, the year 2006 corresponds to the "95th year of the Republic" (or). In official contexts, this system is always used, while the Gregorian calendar is sometimes used in informal contexts. To avoid confusion, the Gregorian year is always written out in full in Taiwan. For example, 95.01.29 refers to 2006-01-29, not 1995-01-29 (which would be rendered as 84.01.29). Another means to distinguish between the two systems is to place the terms Gōngyuán (Chinese: 公元, common era) and Mínguó (Chinese: 民國, Republic) before the year. Example: 2006 is rendered as either Chinese: 公元2006年 or Chinese: 民國95年.
The day of the week is often appended to the date and commonly enclosed in parentheses, such as Chinese: 2006年1月29日 (星期日).
In speech, the date is spoken in the same format as it is written.
Hào is a colloquial term used to express the day of the month instead of rì . It is rarely used in formal writing.
Hào is more often used when the month is understood from the context, i.e.: for the 29th.
Dates written in Hong Kong and Macau are often formatted in the DD.MM.YYYY style due to European influences. Nonetheless, the Chinese form of the dates is still read in the same way as described above. Visas for the People's Republic of China also conform to this format.
See also: Traditional Chinese timekeeping. It is not uncommon to see Chinese numerals instead of Arabic numbers, but tourist attractions will usually use Arabic numerals for the convenience of foreigners.
Chinese characters that mean hour and minute are sometimes used instead of the standard colon, as in, literally "nineteen hours, forty-five minutes". is a variation of and typically used in speech and often in writing. is used to mean exactly on the hour, so would be understood as "[exactly] 19:00"., which literally means "clock", can be added to a time phrase, usually to mean on the hour (such as, "7 o'clock [sharp]") or a time period of minutes (such as, "twelve minutes long"). If the minutes of a given time are less than ten, the preceding zero is included in speech. The time 08:05 would be read as, similar to how English speakers would describe the same time as "eight oh-five".
Both the 12-hour and 24-hour notations are used in spoken and written Chinese. To avoid confusion, time on schedules and public notices are typically formatted in the 24-hour system, so the times Chinese: 19:45 and Chinese: 07:45 are understood to be 12 hours apart from each other. Spoken Chinese predominantly uses the 12-hour system and follows the same concept as A.M. and P.M. . However, these clarifying words precede the time. For example, 19:45 would be written as ("after noon seven hours forty-five") or ("after noon seven hours forty-five minutes"). Time written in the 24-hour system can be read as is, so is read as .
A sample of other phrases that are often used to better describe the time-frame of day are listed below:
| Chinese | Pinyin | Meaning | Time period covered | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| approaching morning/dawn | Midnight to before dawn | |||
| morning | Dawn to about 9:00 or 10:00 | |||
| day before noon | Dawn to 11:59 Also used in computer systems (e.g. Windows) to denote "a.m." | |||
| midday; noon | 11:00 to 12:59 | |||
| day after noon | 13:00 to before dusk Also used in computer systems (e.g. Windows) to denote "p.m." | |||
| approaching evening/night | Dusk to about 19:00 | |||
| evening/night | 18:00 to midnight |
Note: As in English, these time-frame phrases are used only with the 12-hour system.
Time can alternatively be expressed as a fraction of the hour. A traditional Chinese unit of time, the, was 1/96 of the 24-hour day, equivalent mathematically to 15 minutes and semantically to the English "quarter of an hour". A quarter-after is thus or . A quarter-to is, or more commonly, . "At the half-hour" is described using, which means half.
Attention must be drawn to the time 02:00. It is written as (Chinese: 2時) but is almost always read as (Chinese: 兩點). The number two, (Chinese: 二), takes the form of (Chinese: 兩) when followed by a measure word, in this case, (Chinese: 點). Note that this does not apply to either 12:00. Noon is ; ; or . Midnight, on the other hand, is or .
Cantonese has an additional method of expressing time as a fraction of the hour. This system divides the hour into 12 units, each five minutes long. Each unit, therefore, corresponds to one of the numbers written on an analogue clock. The character for this unit is uncertain since it is only used in speech, however the Cantonese pronunciation is and homonymous to the Mandarin pronunciation of Chinese: 字, . This method can be used in two ways - with the relative hour and without. When the relative hour is included, the unit must be preceded with the measure word Chinese: 個 . Example: 3:05 is Chinese: 3點1個字, usually simply 3點1. When the relative hour is not included, the unit is omitted as well; the position of the minute hand is described instead, using the verb Chinese: 踏, which literally means "step on", meaning "resting on top of" in this context. Examples:
five-after = Chinese: 踏1
ten-after = Chinese: 踏2
fifteen-to = Chinese: 踏9
ten-to = Chinese: 踏10
The half-hour mark is never described using this unit of five minutes, however. 3:30 is still Chinese: 3點半, as previously described. Half-past the hour is Chinese: 踏半 .
See also: Date and time notation in India.
See also: Date and time notation in Pakistan.
See also: Date and time notation in Iran.
See also: Date and time notation in Japan.
See also: Date and time notation in South Korea.
See also: Date and time notation in Mongolia.
See also: Date and time notation in Nepal.
See also: Date and time notation in Turkey.