Month - Number Of Months In A Year And Ways To Learn Months

According to the Gregorian calendar of modern time, there are 12 months in a year. Each month has either 30 or 31 days, except for one month of February which has 28 or 29 days, depending on the year being a leap year. There is a rhyme which is commonly used to memorize the months in a year, which says, 'Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November; All the rest have thirty-one, Excepting February alone; And that has twenty-eight days clear; And twenty-nine in each leap year.' Let us learn more about the months in a year in this article.

1.	How Many Months Are in a Year?
2.	Months in a Year
3.	Number of Days in a Month
4.	How to Remember the Days of a Month?
5.	What is a Leap Year?

How Many Months Are in a Year?

There are a total of 12 months in a year and each month is known by different names. We can learn the names of all the months with the help of a calendar.

Months in a Year

A month is a unit of time, used in calendars, and is approximately a natural period related to the motion of the Moon. The months of the year and the Moon are related to each other. Originally, the months were based on the movement of the moon.

12 Months Name

Observe the figure given below which shows the list of all the 12 months in a year.

12 Months in Order

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, and December.

Out of the 12 months in a calendar, the year starts with the month of January and ends with the month of December. 

Number of Days in a Month

The ancient Romans started with a calendar of 10 months. In the original Roman calendar, the months were named as Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Junius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, and December.  In this calendar, around 60 days were left that were unaccounted. Later, the months Januarius and Februarius were added to the end of the year considering the remaining extra 60 days.

Months with 31 Days

There are 7 months that have 31 days and they can be listed as January, March, May, July, August, October, and December.

Months with 30 days

There are 4 months that have 30 days and they can be listed as April, June, September, and November.

How to Remember the Days of a Month?

The number of days in a month need to be memorized. We should keep in mind that we have months with 31 days, months with 30 days, and a month which has 28 or 29 days. The following method helps us remember these months along with the number of days that they have.

Knuckle method

The knuckle method uses the knuckles of our hands and is a simple trick that helps us remember the number of days in a month. Let us see how it works.

• The months that are on the top of the knuckle represent 31 days, whereas, the depression between the knuckles represents the months that have 30 days.
• We start with January on the knuckle, so February comes in the depression, March comes on the knuckle and April comes in the depression, and so on.
• It should be noted that the two knuckles where your hands meet denote July and August which have 31 days.
• The last knuckle is not used.
• Now, let us check, March is on the knuckle, so it has 31 days. But April is not on the knuckle, so it has only 30 days.

What is a Leap Year?

A normal year has 365 days. In a normal year, the Earth takes about 365.242375 days to go around the Sun, but we count only 365 times. In other words, our earth takes 365 and a quarter days to complete one revolution. So, in an ordinary year, we take 365 days, leaving the quarter. These 4 quarters sum up to make 1 extra day after every 4 years. This extra day is then added to the leap year. This is the reason why there are 366 days in a leap year.

Tips to Remember

• Learn the calendar rhyme for memorizing the number of days in each month.
• Count the knuckles as 31 days.
• Count the depression between the knuckles as 30 days.
• January is the first month of the year.
• December is the last month of the year. 
• February has 28 days or 29 days.
• Every year has 12 months.
• A normal year has 365 days.
• A leap year has 366 days.

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