Century

"Centuries" and "Centenary" redirect here. For other uses, see Century (disambiguation), Centuries (disambiguation), and Centenary (disambiguation).

A century is a period of 100 years. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word century comes from the Latin centum, meaning one hundred. Century is sometimes abbreviated as c.

A centenary is a hundredth anniversary, or a celebration of this, typically the remembrance of an event which took place a hundred years earlier.

Start and end of centuries

Although a century can mean any arbitrary period of 100 years, there are two viewpoints on the nature of standard centuries. One is based on strict construction, while the other is based on popular perception.

According to the strict construction, the 1st century AD began with 1 AD and ended with 100 AD, with the same pattern continuing onward. In this model, the n-th century starts with the year that ends with "01", and ends with the year that ends with "00". Because of this, a century will only include one year, the centennial year, that starts with the century's number (e.g. 1900 was the last year of the 19th century).

In popular perception and practice, centuries are often structured by grouping years based on their shared digits. In this model, the 'n' -th century starts with the year that ends in "00", and ends with the year ending in "99". For example, the 20th century would be regarded as from 1900 to 1999, inclusive. This is sometimes known as the odometer effect. The astronomical year numbering and ISO 8601 systems both contain a year zero, so the first century begins with the year zero, rather than the year one.

Strict vs Popular usage

Year	2 BC	1 BC	1	2	...	99	100	101	102	...	199	200	201	202	...	1899	1900	1901	1902	...	1999	2000	2001	2002	...	2099	2100	2101	2102	...
Strict	1st century BC		1st century					2nd century					3rd century		...	19th century		20th century					21st century					22nd century		...
Popular	1st century BC		1st century				2nd century					3rd century			...	19th century	20th century					21st century					22nd century			...

Alternative naming systems

Informally, years may be referred to in groups based on the hundreds part of the year. In this system, the years 1900–1999 are referred to as the nineteen hundreds (1900s). Aside from English usage, this system is used in Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Finnish and Hungarian. The Swedish nittonhundratalet (or 1900-talet), Danish nittenhundredetallet (or 1900-tallet), Norwegian nittenhundretallet (or 1900-tallet), Finnish tuhatyhdeksänsataaluku (or 1900-luku) and Hungarian ezerkilencszázas évek (or 1900-as évek) refer unambiguously to the years 1900–1999.

Italian also has a similar system, but it only expresses the hundreds and omits the word for “thousand”. This system mainly functions from the 11th to the 20th century:

il Quattrocento (that is “the four hundred”, the 15th century)

il Cinquecento (that is “the five hundred”, the 16th century).

These terms are often used in other languages when referring to the history of Italy.

Similar dating units in other calendar systems

While the century has been commonly used in the West, other cultures and calendars have utilized differently sized groups of years in a similar manner. The Hindu calendar, in particular, summarizes its years into groups of 60, while the Aztec calendar considers groups of 52.

See also

• Age of Discovery
• Ancient history
• Before Christ
• Common Era
• Decade
• List of decades, centuries, and millennia
• Lustrum
• Middle Ages
• Millennium
• Modern era
• Saeculum
• Year

Bibliography

• The Battle of the Centuries, Ruth Freitag, U.S. Government Printing Office. Available from the Superintendent of Documents, P.O. Box 371954, Pittsburgh, PA 15250- 7954. Cite stock no. 030-001-00153-9. Retrieved 3 March 2019.