Katuns to Years (katun to yr)
1 katun equals 19.71293045 years (rounded).
How to convert katuns to years
To convert katuns to years, multiply the number of katuns by 19.71293045. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply years by 0.050728125.
years = katuns × 19.71293045
Example: 10 katuns = 197.1293045 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
Katun (katun)
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
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 katuns (reverse)
- Katuns to seconds
- Katuns to minutes
- Katuns to hours
- Katuns to days
- Katuns to weeks
- Katuns 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.