Japanese era name

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The Japanese era name (Japanese: 年号, Hepburn: nengō, "year name") or gengō (元号), is the first of the two elements that identify years in the Japanese era calendar scheme. The second element is a number which indicates the year number within the era (with the first year being "gan (元)"), followed by the literal "nen (年)" meaning "year".

Era names originated in 140 BCE in Imperial China, during the reign of the Emperor Wu of Han.^[1][2] As elsewhere in the Sinosphere, the use of era names was originally derived from Chinese imperial practice,^[2][3][4] although the Japanese system is independent of the Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese era name systems. Unlike its other Sinosphere counterparts, Japanese era names are still in official use. Government offices usually require era names and years for official papers.

The five era names used since the end of the Edo period in 1868 can be abbreviated by taking the first letter of their romanized names. For example, S55 means Shōwa 55 (i.e. 1980), and H22 stands for Heisei 22 (2010). At 62 years and 2 weeks, Shōwa is the longest era to date.

The Reiwa (令和)^[5] era began on 1 May 2019, the day of accession of Naruhito to the throne as the 126th Emperor of Japan,^[6] following the day of the planned and voluntary abdication^[7] of his father, the 125th Emperor, Akihito. Emperor Akihito had received special permission to abdicate,^[8] rather than serving in his role until his death, as is the rule.^[9] The Reiwa (令和) era followed the 31st and final year of the Heisei era (平成31年), which had started on the day after the death of Emperor Hirohito on 8 January 1989.