When is the next leap year?
2023 is not a leap year ((Alamy/PA))
With 2023 in its tenth month, there are many wondering whether 2024 will be a leap year.
Without leap years, there would be nothing to keep our months and years in check.
The Gregorian calendar is used in the UK and by the majority of the rest of the world. It has 365 days a year, plus one additional day every four years. These years are called leap years.
The Roman general Julius Caesar instituted leap years in the Western calendar more than 2,000 years ago. The Julian calendar, which bears his name, had just one rule: a leap year was declared in any year that could be divided evenly by four.
However, this formula wasn’t exact enough and wasn’t corrected until the introduction of the Gregorian calendar more than 1,500 years later, when a number of days were skipped to realign our calendar with the seasons.
But what is a leap year and when is the next one?
What is a leap year?
In a leap year, the shortest month, February, gets an extra day at the end of it. This so-called intercalary day, February 29, is commonly referred to as leap day.
Leap years have 366 days instead of the usual 365 days and occur almost every four years.
When is the next leap year?
The last leap day was February 29, 2020 and the next one is February 29, 2024.
Why does leap year exist?
Our calendar remains in sync with Earth’s rotations around the Sun thanks to leap days. Earth completes one orbit of the Sun in about 365.242189 days, or 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 45 seconds. The equinox in March marks the beginning of what is known as a tropical year.
Only 365 days make up a year on the Gregorian calendar. In regard to Earth’s rotation around the Sun, each calendar year would start around 6 hours earlier if we didn’t add a leap day on February 29 almost every four years.
It has also been customary for women to pop the question to men on the extra day.
According to Irish legend, St. Patrick issued his proclamation allowing women to pop the question to men on the additional day of a leap year after being informed by St. Brigid of Kildare that maidens were forced to wait too long for their suitors to ask for their hand in marriage.
