Template:Start and end dates

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This template is used on approximately 3,000 pages and changes may be widely noticed. Test changes in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. Consider discussing changes on the talk page before implementing them.

This purpose of the {{start and end dates}} template is to return the date range during which an event transpired or an entity existed. It also includes duplicate, machine-readable date (or date-time) in the ISO date format (which is hidden by CSS), for use inside other templates (or table rows) which emit microformats. It should be used only once in each such template and never used outside such templates. The hidden date degrades gracefully when CSS is not available.

Usage

When not to use this template

Do not use this template for:

dates that are uncertain e.g., "before 4 April 1933"; "around 18 November 1939".
dates outside the range given under "Limitation", below.
other, secondary dates
outside microformat-emitting templates - if in doubt, see the parent template's documentation
more than one date in any parent template

Syntax

{{start and end dates|year|month|day|year|month|day}}

Examples

Standard: {{start and end dates|1939|9|1|1945|9|2}} → September 1, 1939 – September 2, 1945 (1939-09-01 – 1945-09-02)
Day first: {{start and end dates|1939|9|1|1945|9|2|df=yes}} → 1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945 (1939-09-01 – 1945-09-02)
Same year: {{start and end dates|1939|9|1|1939|10|2}} → September 1 – October 2, 1939 (1939-09-01 – 1939-10-02)
Same month and year: {{start and end dates|1939|9|1|1939|9|2}} → September 1–2, 1939 (1939-09-01 – 1939-09-02)
Present range: {{start and end dates|1939|9|1|present}} → September 1, 1939 – present (1939-09-01 – present)

Parameters

This is the TemplateData for this template used by TemplateWizard, VisualEditor and other tools. See a monthly parameter usage report for Template:Start and end dates in articles based on its TemplateData.

TemplateData for Start and end dates

Date that an event or entity started or was created and when it ended or was destroyed

Template parameters[Edit template data]
Parameter		Description	Type	Status
YYYY	`1`	start year Example 1939	Number	optional
MM	`2`	start month Example 9	Number	optional
DD	`3`	start day of month Example 1	Number	optional
YYYY	`4`	end year Example 1945	Number	optional
MM	`5`	end month Example 9	Number	optional
DD	`6`	end day of month Example 2	Number	optional
day first	`df`	boolean parameter to put the date before the month name Default false Example yes	Line	optional

Use in microformats

This template also returns the date, hidden by CSS, in the ISO 8601 format needed by one or more of the following microformats:

hAtom (class="updated")
hAudio (class="published")
hCalendar (class="dtstart")
hCard (class="bday")

usually, but not always, within infobox or similar templates, or tables.

Its use in hCard is for organizations, venues and similar; use {{Birth date}} or {{Birth date and age}} for people.

Similarly, {{End date}} returns the date as hCalendar's (class="dtend").

See the microformats project for further details.

Limitation

This template has no provision to deal with a date in a non-Gregorian calendar. Also, ISO 8601 requires mutual agreement among those exchanging information before using years outside the range 1583–9999 CE. Therefore, use of this template for non-Gregorian dates or dates outside that range constitutes a false claim of conformance to the ISO 8601 standard.

Any editor encountering such usage should change the date to plain text with no template; or if not confident in doing so, raise the matter on this template's talk page.