Chinese Calendar
The Chinese New Year is the second New Moon after the winter solstice.
Chinese calendar
The Chinese calendar is lunisolar calendar, incorporating elements of a lunar calendar with those of a solar calendar. This measure of time was first introduced by the Babylonians ....
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The Chinese calendar was considered to be symbol of a dynasty. As dynasties would rise and fall, astronomers and astrologers of each period would often prepare a new calendar to be made, with observations for that purpose.
Examples of Lunar calendars still in use are the traditional Jewish and Chinese calendars. The difficulty with Lunar calendars is that the seasons are correlated with the Sun, not the Moon.
The Hebrew, Hindu lunar, Buddhist, Tibetan calendars, and Chinese calendar used alone until 1912 and then used along with the Gregorian Calendar are all lunisolar, as was the Japanese calendar until 1873, the pre-Islamic calendar, ...
You probably don't think it is, but several major cultures still use the Moon as a basis for their calendars - these include people who use the Islamic, Judaic, or Chinese calendar. That's a pretty large number of people.
Unlike the Gregorian calendar, which is strictly seasonal, the Chinese calendar employs both seasonal and lunar cycles.
Maps of the stars are nearly as ancient as human culture itself; inscriptions describing the positions of stars and constellations appear on Egyptian temples, Babylonian tablets, and Chinese calendars produced thousands of years ago.
The apparent motion of the Moon is similar. The time between successive full Moons is the synodic month, it is 29.5 days long. Note that the Chinese calendar is based on both the motions of the Moon and the Sun, not just the Moon.
It is still used by Jews, on whose calendar each month begins at or near the new moon, when the Moon's position in the sky is nearest to the Sun's. The traditional Chinese calendar also uses of a formula like Meton's, ...
 See also: Calendar, Day, Solar, Month, BC
  
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