Baktuns to Years (baktun to yr)
1 baktun equals 394.258609 years (rounded).
How to convert baktuns to years
To convert baktuns to years, multiply the number of baktuns by 394.258609. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply years by 0.00253640625.
years = baktuns × 394.258609
Example: 10 baktuns = 3,942.58609 years.
Months and years are not constant. This site uses the average Gregorian year of 365.2425 days, so one 'year' converts to 365.2425 days, not 365; use 'common year' for exactly 365 days.
About these units
Baktun (baktun)
20 katuns or 144,000 days (about 394 years). The Long Count completed 13 baktuns on 21 December 2012, a date misread as a doomsday prediction.
The largest unit in everyday Long Count use, the baktun spans 20 katuns, or 144,000 days, about 394.26 tropical years. Dates are written with the baktun count first, so a monument reading 9.15.10.0.0 sits in the ninth baktun, and the Classic period of Maya civilization fell mainly in the eighth and ninth.
Public attention came when the count reached 13.0.0.0.0 on 21 December 2012, under the widely used GMT correlation. Popular writers called it the end of the world, but scholars note there is no evidence the Maya expected that, and the count simply moved on to 14.0.0.0.0. The next such milestone falls in March 2407.
A naming quirk follows from the numbering. The Long Count starts counting from zero, so the baktun that began in 2012 is strictly the fourteenth, though it is usually called the thirteenth. J. Eric S. Thompson judged that usage inaccurate but too entrenched to change. Larger cycles such as the piktun, at 20 baktuns, are rarely attested, and their names are modern coinages.
1 baktun = 12,441,600,000 seconds (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Baktun; Wikipedia: Mesoamerican Long Count calendar; Wikipedia: Maya calendar
Year (yr)
The average Gregorian calendar year of 365.2425 days (31,556,952 seconds). A common year has 365 days and a leap year 366.
A year is the Earth's trip around the Sun, but there are several versions. The tropical year, which tracks the seasons, is about 365.2422 days. The sidereal year, measured against the stars, is about 365.2564 days, roughly 20 minutes longer, because the Earth's axis precesses. Calendars must squeeze these into whole days, which is the origin of leap years. English year descends from Old English gear, while Latin annus, the source of annual, comes from a different root.
The Gregorian calendar, introduced by Pope Gregory XIII's bull of 24 February 1582, fixed the problem of Julian drift that had moved the March equinox away from 21 March and upset the date of Easter. Ten days were skipped, so Thursday 4 October was followed by Friday 15 October. Its rule of skipping leap days in century years not divisible by 400 gives a mean year of 365.2425 days, the value this site uses for the year. Britain and its empire switched in 1752 and Russia in 1918. Scientists write the year as a, with the Julian year fixed at 31,557,600 seconds.
1 year = 31,556,952 seconds (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Year; Wikipedia: Gregorian calendar
Related conversions
- Years to baktuns (reverse)
- Baktuns to seconds
- Baktuns to minutes
- Baktuns to hours
- Baktuns to days
- Baktuns to weeks
- Baktuns to months
- Seconds to years
- Minutes to years
- Hours to years
- Days to years
- Weeks to years
- Months to years
- Milliseconds to years
- Microseconds to years
- Nanoseconds to years
- Decades to years
- Centuries to years
- Millennia to years
See all time units.