Katuns to Months (katun to mo)

1 katun equals 236.5551654 months (rounded).

1 katun = 236.5551654 months

How to convert katuns to months

To convert katuns to months, multiply the number of katuns by 236.5551654. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply months by 0.00422734375.

months = katuns × 236.5551654

Example: 10 katuns = 2,365.551654 months.

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

Katun (katun)

MayaHistorical unit (no longer in standard use)

20 tuns or 7,200 days (about 19.7 years).

Twenty tuns, or 7,200 days, add up to a katun, which Wikipedia converts to 19.713 tropical years. That is why the unit is described as roughly twenty years, although it falls about three and a half months short of that.

Katuns carried real social weight. Rulers who lived to see four or five of them could take the title of a 4-katun or 5-katun ruler, a kind of age honorific. The end of a katun was marked by ceremonies, and at Tikal large twin pyramid complexes were built to host them. Each katun was also thought to carry its own set of prophecies and associations.

After the Long Count fell out of use in the Postclassic period, the Maya still tracked katuns by the Calendar Round date on which each began, a system known as the Short Count. In the Long Count the katun is the second digit from the left of a typical date, running 0 to 19 before it rolls into the next baktun. The figure of 622,080,000 seconds used here follows from the 7,200 day count.

1 katun = 622,080,000 seconds (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Kʼatun; Wikipedia: Maya calendar; Steve Morse: Mayan Calendar Rules

Month (mo)

CalendarCurrent unit

One twelfth of an average Gregorian year: 30.436875 days. Calendar months actually range from 28 to 31 days.

Month and Moon are cognates, and the unit began as the Moon's cycle of phases, about 29.53 days from one new moon to the next. The trouble is that 12 of these fall short of a solar year, so calendars have had to choose. The Islamic calendar stays purely lunar, so its year is about 11 days shorter than the solar year, while the Hebrew calendar is lunisolar, using a 19-year cycle with an extra month. Even the start of a lunar month is still debated between observing the crescent and calculating it.

Gregorian months are a compromise that drifted far from the Moon. Their lengths run from 28 to 31 days, and this site uses their mean of 30.436875 days, one twelfth of the average year. The names also keep Roman history: September to December preserve the Latin numerals for seven to ten, since they were originally the seventh to tenth months, and Quintilis and Sextilis were renamed for Julius Caesar and Augustus. When a contract says month, check whether it means a calendar month or thirty days.

1 month = 2,629,746 seconds (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Month; Wikipedia: Lunar calendar

Related conversions

See all time units.