Topic: Equinoxes and Solstices
How does Indonesia mark Equinoxes and Solstices?
Hari Tanpa Bayangan (Kulminasi Utama)
- Local date
- March 5, 2027
- When is it?
- The day the sun's declination equals the observer's latitude, twice a year, on a different date for every city, published annually by the meteorological agency.
Indonesia has no holiday for a change of season; the equator runs through the country and the year divides into a rainy and a dry season rather than four. What the meteorological, climatological and geophysical agency does publish every year is something else: Hari Tanpa Bayangan, the day without shadows, when the sun's declination matches a place's latitude and a vertical object's noon shadow folds underneath it and disappears. Every city has its own date. In 2026 the first round runs from 21 February at Baa in East Nusa Tenggara to 5 April at Sabang in Aceh, and the second from 7 September at Sabang to 21 October at Baa; Jakarta gets 5 March at 12:04 and 9 October at 11:40. Pontianak, which sits on the equator, falls on 20 March and 23 September — the equinoxes themselves. The same bulletin records the southern turning point for 2026 at 03:49 on 22 December, western Indonesia time.
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.