The international standard recommends writing the date as year, then month, then the day: YYYY-MM-DD.
The United States is one of the few countries that use “mm-dd-yyyy” as their date format–which is very very unique! The day is written first and the year last in most countries (dd-mm-yyyy) and some nations, such as Iran, Korea, and China, write the year first and the day last (yyyy-mm-dd).
Dates formats are not really about the language but simply what the local authorities decide. The format MM/DD/YY (month/day/year) is unique to the United States but is sometimes used in Canada Most of Europe uses DD/MM/YY (day/ month/year).
In more formal, international contexts yyyy-mm-dd is the preferred allowed format.
Date and time notation in the United Kingdom records the date using the day–month–year format (31 December 1999, 31/12/99 or 31/12/1999). The time can be written using either the 24-hour clock (23:59) or the 12-hour clock (11:59 p.m.), either with a colon or a full stop (11.59 p.m.).
Saying the date in English
Even when speaking, someone from the U.S. might say 'April 13', while someone from the UK might say 'the 13th of April'. Both are correct, but it's better to be consistent.
We sometimes write it May 21 and sometimes May 21st, but when speaking we always say third, sixteenth, twenty-first. You'll sometimes hear people say: the third of June. the sixteenth of February.
The default long date format in Chinese is YYYY 年 MM 月 DD 日 or YYYY 年 M 月 D 日, e.g., 2020 年 02 月 02 日 or 2020 年 2 月 2 日. The default short date format in Chinese is YYYY/MM/DD or YYYY/M/D, e.g., 2020/02/02 or 2020/2/2.
Most of Europe uses DD/MM/YY. Japan uses YY/MM/DD. The separators may be slashes, dashes or periods.
The format MM/DD/YY is unique to the United States (but sometimes used in Canada, too, which can obviously create some confusion there). Most of Europe uses DD/MM/YY. Japan uses YY/MM/DD.
In Italy, the all-numeric form for dates is in the day–month–year format, using a stroke as the separator; sometimes a dot or a hyphen is used instead of the stroke.
The international standard recommends writing the date as year, then month, then the day: YYYY-MM-DD. So if both Australians and Americans used this, they would both write the date as 2019-02-03. Writing the date this way avoids confusion by placing the year first.
DateFormat for Singapore/English locale (en_SG) is M/d/yy instead of d/M/yy.
In Australia, the conventional sequence for dates is 'day month year'.
International format for telephone numbers
The international format uses a plus symbol '+' to represent the international prefix, followed by a country code ('61' for Australia). For landline numbers: start with a plus symbol '+' and add the country code ('61' for Australia) add the area code without the '0'
In 1915 a committee to celebrate Australia Day was formed, and the date chosen was 30 July, on which many fund-raising efforts were run to support the war effort. It was also held in July in subsequent years of World War I: on 28 July 1916, 27 July 1917, and 26 July 1918.
Today, the vast majority of countries use the Gregorian calendar as their sole civil calendar. The four countries which have not adopted the Gregorian calendar are Ethiopia (Ethiopian calendar), Nepal (Vikram Samvat and Nepal Sambat), Iran and Afghanistan (Solar Hijri calendar).
Gong Xi Fa Cai! On January 29, 2025, the Asian community will celebrate the Lunar New Year, year 4723 on Chinese calendars, which is Year of the Snake. The Snake is the sixth animal of the Chinese Zodiac.
📅 Different countries use different date formats largely due to historical conventions, cultural influences, and practical considerations. The main variations are day-month-year (DD/MM/YYYY), month-day-year (MM/DD/YYYY), and year-month-day (YYYY-MM-DD).
December 17 is the 351st day of the year (352nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar; 14 days remain until the end of the year.