Topic: Equinoxes and Solstices
Does Brazil have Equinoxes and Solstices?
Not observed here
Brazil has no holiday tied to an equinox or a solstice. Law No. 662 of 6 April 1949, as amended by Law No. 10,607 of 2002, lists seven national holidays — 1 January, 21 April, 1 May, 7 September, 2 November, 15 November and 25 December — and not one of them is dated by the position of the sun. The only time Brazilian law chased the seasons was daylight saving, and that has been abolished: Decree No. 9,772 of 25 April 2019 ends summer time throughout the national territory in its first article and, in its second, repeals twenty-five separate summer-time decrees issued since 1991 in one sweep. Worth remembering too that Brazil is in the southern hemisphere, so the December solstice opens summer here, not winter.
What is this topic?
These are the only holidays whose date nobody chose. The sun reaches a point on the ecliptic and that is the day. What differs is how each state writes that fact into law. Japan made the spring and autumn equinoxes statutory holidays without naming a date, leaves the calculation to its national observatory, and only fixes each year's dates in an official gazette the previous February. Taiwan's holiday act dates exactly two days by solar term and never mentions the winter solstice. In China only one statutory holiday, Qingming, is dated by the sun. India's Makar Sankranti has drifted three weeks away from the solstice it once marked. The United States skipped astronomy altogether and legislated "the second Sunday of March."
Sources and dates
Dates follow local time zones, calendars, and official notices. Check the source when a date is estimated or locally variable.