Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers
 | This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style. Editors should generally follow it, though it is best treated with common sense, and exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. |
| Manual of Style |
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This page guides the presentation of numbers, dates, times, measurements, currencies, coordinates, and similar items in articles. The aim is to promote clarity, cohesion, and consistency, and to make the encyclopedia easier and more intuitive to use. For numbers, dates, and similar items in Wikipedia article titles, see the Naming conventions (numbers and dates) guideline.
Where this manual gives options, maintain consistency within an article unless there is a good reason to do otherwise. The Arbitration Committee has ruled that editors should not change an article from one guideline-defined style to another without a substantial reason unrelated to mere choice of style; edit-warring over optional styles is unacceptable.[a] If discussion fails to resolve the question of which style to use in an article, defer to the style used by the first major contributor.
General notes
[edit]Quotations, titles, etc.
[edit]Quotations, titles of books and articles, and similar "imported" text should be faithfully reproduced, even if they use formats or units inconsistent with these guidelines or with other formats in the same article. If necessary, clarify via [bracketed interpolation], article text, or footnotes.
Non-breaking spaces
[edit]Guidance on the use of non-breaking spaces ("hard spaces") is given in some sections below, but not all situations in which hard spaces ({{nbsp}} or ) or {{nowrap}} may be appropriate are described.
Chronological items
[edit]Statements likely to become outdated
[edit]Except on pages that are inherently time-sensitive and updated regularly (e.g. the "Current events" portal), terms such as now, today, currently, present, to date, so far, soon, upcoming, ongoing, and recently should be avoided in favor of phrases such as during the 2010s, since 2010, and in August 2020. Wording in prose can be modified to remove the "now" perspective: not she is the current director but she became director on 1 January 2026; not 2010–present but beginning in 2010 or since 2010. Terms likely to go out of date include best known for, holds the record for, etc.[b] For current and future events, use phrases such as as of October 2026 or since the beginning of 2026 to signal the time-dependence of the information; use the template {{as of}} (or {{updated}}) in conjunction. Terms such as moribund or soon to be defunct to describe a subject's oncoming discontinuation (e.g. a television channel or radio station, a system being phased out, program, or rule/law) are also discouraged, as the subject continues to exist until it ends and moves on into the past tense despite its oncoming ending.
Even pages updated regularly that contain several phrases that go out of date throughout the page (e.g. use of has been instead of became) are tedious to update after, for example, an election where many people lose their seats, and even if updated tend to retain some neglected out-of-date language. Relative-time expressions are acceptable for very long periods, such as geological epochs: Humans diverged from other primates long ago, but only recently developed state legislatures.
Dates, months, and years
[edit]- These requirements do not apply to dates in quotations or titles; .
- Special rules apply to citations; .
- See also Wikipedia:Overview of date formatting guidelines.
Formats
[edit]| General use | Only in limited situations where brevity is helpful[c] |
Comments |
|---|---|---|
| 2 September 2001 | 2 Sep 2001 | A comma doesn't follow the year unless otherwise required by context:
|
| September 2, 2001 | Sep 2, 2001 | A comma follows the year unless other punctuation obviates it:
|
| 2 September | 2 Sep | Omit year only where there is no risk of ambiguity:
|
| September 2 | Sep 2 | |
| No equivalent for general use | 2001-09-02 | Use yyyy-mm-dd format only with Gregorian dates from 1583 onward.[e] |
| September 2001 | Sep 2001 |
- Dates, years, and other chronological items should be linked only when they are relevant to the subject and likely to be useful to a reader; this rule does not apply to articles that are explicitly on a chronological item, e.g. 2002, 19th century .[f]
- For issues related to dates in sortable tables, and , or consider using
{{dts|Nov 1, 2008}}. - Phrases such as Fourth of July (or July Fourth, but not July 4th), Cinco de Mayo, Seventh of March Speech, and Sete de Setembro are proper names, to which rules for dates do not apply (A typical Fourth of July celebration includes fireworks).
 Unacceptable |
 Corrected |
Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Sep. 2 | Sep 2[c] | Do not add a full stop (period) to an abbreviated month or to the day-of-month.[g] |
| 9. June | 9 June or June 9 | |
| 9 june june 9 |
Months should be capitalized. | |
| 9th June June 9th the 9th of June |
Do not use ordinals (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.). | |
| 09-06 06-09 |
Do not use these formats. | |
| 09 June June 09 |
Do not zero-pad day ... | |
| 2007-4-15 | 2007-04-15[c] | ... except in all-numeric (yyyy-mm-dd) format, in which month and day are zero-padded to two digits. |
| 2007/04/15 | Use only hyphen separators. | |
| 20070415 | Do not omit hyphens. | |
| 07-04-15 | Do not abbreviate year. | |
| 15-04-2007 04-15-2007 2007-15-04 |
Do not use dd-mm-yyyy, mm-dd-yyyy or yyyy-dd-mm formats.[h] | |
| 2007 April 15 2007 Apr 15 |
Do not use these formats. | |
| 7/2001 7-2001 07-2001 2001-07 2001 July July of 2001 |
July 2001 | Do not use these formats. |
| July, 2001 | No comma between month and year. | |
| 3 July, 2001 | 3 July 2001 | |
| July 3 2001 | July 3, 2001 | Comma required between day and year. |
| the '97 elections the 97 elections |
the 1997 elections | Do not abbreviate year. |
| Copyright MMII | Copyright 2002 | Roman numerals are not normally used for dates. |
| Two thousand one | 2001 | Years and days of the month are not normally written in words. |
| the first of May May the first |
1 May or May 1 | |
| June 0622 | June 622 | Do not zero-pad years. |
| June 2,015 | June 2015 | Do not add a comma to a four-digit year. |
| sold in the year 1995 | sold in 1995 | Write "the year" only where needed for clarity (About 200 ships arrived in the year 300). |
Consistency
[edit]
- Dates in article body text[i] should all use the same format: She fell ill on 25 June 2005 and died on 28 June, not She fell ill on 25 June 2005 and died on June 28.
- Publication dates in an article's citations should all use the same format, which may be:For example, publication dates within a single article might be in one, but only one, of these formats (among others):
- the format used in the article body text,
- an abbreviated format from the "Acceptable date formats" table, provided the day and month elements are in the same order as in dates in the article body
- the format expected in the citation style being used (but all-numeric date formats other than yyyy-mm-dd must still be avoided).
If an article uses a template such as- Jones, J. (20 September 2008)
- Jones, J. (September 20, 2008)
{{Use mdy dates}}or{{Use dmy dates}}, then Citation Style 1 and 2 templates automatically render dates (|date=,|access-date=,|archive-date=, etc) in the specified format, regardless of the format they are entered in. (The|cs1-dates=parameter can be used to fine-tune the generated output, .) - Access and archive dates in an article's citations should all use the same format, which may be:For example, access/archive dates within a single article might be in one, but only one, of these formats (among others):
- the format used for publication dates in the article (see above);
- the format expected in the citation style adopted in the article; or
- yyyy-mm-dd
When a citation style does not expect differing date formats, it is permissible to normalize publication dates to the article body text date format, and/or access/archive dates to either, with date consistency being preferred.- Jones, J. (September 20, 2008) ... Retrieved February 5, 2009.
- Jones, J. (20 Sep 2008) ... Retrieved 5 Feb 2009.
- Jones, J. (20 September 2008) ... Retrieved 2009-02-05.
Strong national ties to a topic
[edit]Articles on topics with strong ties to a particular English-speaking country (see Wikipedia:Manual of Style § Strong national ties to a topic) should generally use the date format most commonly used in that country.
- For the United States this is MDY (July 4, 1976).
- For most other English-speaking countries it is DMY (4 July 1976).
- Articles relating to Canada may use either format with (as always) consistency within each article.