conventions for date representation around the world
Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › List_of_date_formats_by_country
List of date formats by country - Wikipedia
1 week ago - Writers have traditionally written abbreviated dates according to their local custom, creating all-numeric equivalents to day–month formats such as "14 March 2026" (14/03/26, 14/03/2026, 14-03-2026 or 14.03.2026) and month–day formats such as "March 14, 2026" (03/14/26 or 03/14/2026).
Reddit
reddit.com › r/youshouldknow › ysk the date format yyyy-mm-dd is the international standard. it's a great format to use anywhere you put dates. it's especially useful when including dates in file names. this will allow all files to sort by date when sorting alphabetically.
r/YouShouldKnow on Reddit: YSK the date format YYYY-MM-DD is the international standard. It's a great format to use anywhere you put dates. It's especially useful when including dates in file names. This will allow all files to sort by date when sorting alphabetically.
January 18, 2022 -
Why YSK: YYYY-MM-DD is the International (ISO) Standard format for dates. This format makes the most sense for reasons of sorting and also eliminates any confusion due to different date formatting in different regions. This is especially useful when you have files in a folder that have dates in the name.
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I work as a data analyst for a company with both US and UK offices so always use this format to avoid the confusion of which date format I am using. I’m UK based so all my Computers default to ddmmyyyy and it can cause no end of problems extracting US data. I also have used the Yyyy-mm-dd format for naming files since I can first remember because it was easier to sort in windows file explorer.
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I like how it simply goes from the biggest measurement (year) to smaller measurement (day) In order. In my home country we do the opposite, going from day to month to year. I NEVER understood why the hell Americans switched the order of day and month just to make things more complicated. Whenever I see 11/10/2020 I am never sure how to read it because of this mixup Americans did.
CMV: The (mostly US) way of writing a date "month/day/year" is inferior to writing the date as "day/month/year" and should be changed nationwide.
In the majority of cases, people do not say the date with the year included. If someone asks you when a concert it, you say it's on July 25. Not July 25, 2018. ** (See footnote) Given that, the M/D convention is more in line with how everything else is counted, with the largest unit expressed first, and the smaller unit last. You don't say that there are "Four, Twenty, Three Hundred, and Four Thousand marbles in this jar." You don't say that something is "6 inches and 5 feet tall." Everything else is counted from largest to smallest, so why would the date be any different? ** Edit: To everyone telling me that in the UK (and elsewhere) people say "25th of July", I know that. That's not the point I was making. I was saying that in the US, we typically exclude the year when telling someone the date, and so it just becomes a matter of whether you say month/day or day/month, and given that, it makes logical sense to go from largest to smallest, as we do with everything else. More on reddit.com
Dd/mm/yyyy is the correct way to write a date
Popular opinion on literally the rest of the world but the US More on reddit.com
CMV: YYYY-MM-DD is the superior date format
There is something to be said for presenting the most useful information first. We typically don't need to say the year. For example, If i told you I was going to do something January 10th, you would know what I mean. We also don't ways need to say the month. If i told you i'd do something on the 21st, you'd assume i'm meant the 21st of this month. So we we start with the most relevant information first, there a decent debate to be had over whether we should say the day or the month first. But definitely the year is not very relevant. Very often we only need MM/DD or DD/MM. YYYY/xx/xx is a waste of some space. Especially when speaking. In terms of sorting, most of the time dates are stores as dates and rendered in any format selected. So you can sort properly regardless of format. YYYY-MM-DD has its place. Its good when communicating between different applications which don't share a common data structure. Like between Excel and a database. Its also good when embedded into text fields which you want to sort. Although really you shouldn't be doing that. More on reddit.com
Why do Americans write their date format as MM/DD/YYYY instead of DD/MM/YYYY?
If you look up a date on a calendar, you look up the MONTH first. If you're looking up March 8, for example, you first look at March, then look for the 8th. You don't look at all the 8ths and then find March. Hence, the month going first.
I'm usually on board with the "America does things ass-backwards" crowd, but this is one place in which I think it's defensible.
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Oracle
docs.oracle.com › cd › E41183_01 › DR › Date_Format_Types.html
Date Format Types
You are here: Function Reference > Date Functions > Date Formats > Date Format Types · Month abbreviations consist of the first three characters of the month’s name.
ISO
iso.mit.edu › americanisms › date-format-in-the-united-states
Date Format in the United States | ISO
The United States is one of the ... date format–which is very very unique! The day is written first and the year last in most countries (dd-mm-yyyy) and some nations, such as Iran, Korea, and China, write the year first and the day last (yyyy-mm-dd). But why did Americans choose to write ...
Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Date_and_time_notation_in_the_United_States
Date and time notation in the United States - Wikipedia
14 hours ago - In traditional American usage, dates are written in the month–day–year order (e.g. March 16, 2026) with a comma before and after the year if it is not at the end of a sentence, and time is written in 12-hour notation (e.g. 4:28 am). International date and time formats typically follow the ...
IBM
ibm.com › docs › SS6V3G_5.3.1 › com.ibm.help.gswformsintug.doc › GSW_Date_Time_Formats.html
Date/Time Formats
The Date Formats global option changes the default date format for all maps or forms. However, the format of the existing date fields do not change; the default is only used for new maps or forms.
Unicode
cldr.unicode.org › translation › date-time › date-time-patterns
Date/Time Patterns
April 1, 2025 - Each combination of fields can be used with dates that differ by different amounts. For example, a format for the fields “yMMMd” (year, abbreviated month, and day) could be used with two dates that differ by year, month, or day.
Microsoft Support
support.microsoft.com › en-us › office › format-a-date-the-way-you-want-in-excel-8e10019e-d5d8-47a1-ba95-db95123d273e
Format a date the way you want in Excel - Microsoft Support
If you're modifying a format that includes time values, and you use "m" immediately after the "h" or "hh" code or immediately before the "ss" code, Excel displays minutes instead of the month.
Facebook
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Fun fact! 🗓️ The United States uses the MM/DD/YYYY ...
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Style Manual
stylemanual.gov.au › grammar-punctuation-and-conventions › numbers-and-measurements › dates-and-time
Dates and time | Style Manual
Whichever style you use for date formats, use it consistently. Many computer systems and applications use a full stop in numeric dates. Use 2 digits for the day and month and 4 digits for the year: ‘dd.mm.yyyy’.
ProWritingAid
prowritingaid.com › how-to-write-the-date
How to Write the Date Correctly
May 31, 2022 - Never place a comma after the month. We go every July 4 to see fireworks. Because it’s July 4, we are going to see fireworks. Just like when you include the year, there’s no need to write the ordinal number form of the day. The only time the date should include an ordinal number is when the format is inverted and the word “of” is included.
Microsoft Support
support.microsoft.com › en-us › office › format-a-date-and-time-field-47fbbdc1-52fa-416a-b8d5-ba24d881b698
Format a date and time field - Microsoft Support
Access automatically displays the date and time in the General Date and Long Time formats. The dates appear as, mm/dd/yyyy in the U.S. and as, dd/mm/yyyy outside the U.S. where mm is the month, dd is the day, and yyyy is the year.