A leap year starting on Sunday is any year with 366 days (i.e. it includes 29 February) that begins on Sunday, 1 January, and ends on Monday, 31 December. Its dominical letters hence are AG. The most recent year of such kind was 2012 and the next one will be 2040 in the Gregorian calendar[1] or, likewise 2024 and 2052 in the obsolete Julian calendar.
This is the only leap year with three occurrences of Friday the 13th: those three in this leap year occur three months (13 weeks) apart: in January, April, and July. Common years starting on Thursday share this characteristic, in the months of February, March, and November.
In this type of year, all dates (except 29 February) fall on their respective weekdays the maximal 58 times in the 400 year Gregorian calendar cycle. Leap years starting on Friday share this characteristic. Additionally, these types of years are the only ones which contain 54 different calendar weeks (2 partial, 52 in full) in areas of the world where Monday is considered the first day of the week.
Leap years that begin on Sunday, along with those starting on Friday, occur most frequently: 15 of the 97 (≈ 15.46%) total leap years in a 400-year cycle of the Gregorian calendar. Thus, their overall occurrence is 3.75% (15 out of 400).
| 16th century | prior to first adoption (proleptic) | 1584 | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17th century | 1612 | 1640 | 1668 | 1696 | |||||||
| 18th century | 1792 | ||||||||||
| 19th century | |||||||||||
| 20th century | |||||||||||
| 21st century | 2096 | ||||||||||
| 22nd century | 2192 | ||||||||||
| 23rd century | |||||||||||
| 24th century | |||||||||||
| 25th century | 2496 | ||||||||||
| 26th century | 2592 | ||||||||||
| 27th century | |||||||||||
| 0–99 | 12 | 40 | 68 | 96 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100–199 | 108 | 136 | 164 | 192 | |
| 200–299 | 204 | 232 | 260 | 288 | |
| 300–399 | 328 | 356 | 384 |
Like all leap year types, the one starting with 1 January on a Sunday occurs exactly once in a 28-year cycle in the Julian calendar, i.e., in 3.57% of years. As the Julian calendar repeats after 28 years, it will also repeat after 700 years, i.e., 25 cycles. The formula gives the year's position in the cycle ((year + 8) mod 28) + 1).
| 15th century | 1492 | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16th century | |||||||||||
| 17th century | |||||||||||
| 18th century | 1800 | ||||||||||
| 19th century | 1828 | 1856 | 1884 | ||||||||
| 20th century | 1912 | 1940 | 1968 | 1996 | |||||||
| 21st century | 2024 | 2052 | 2080 | ||||||||
| 22nd century | 2108 | 2136 | 2164 | 2192 |