Date Systems: Ethiopia

This article contains Ethiopic text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Ethiopic characters.

Ethiopian coins use the Ethiopian calendar (or Ethopian Era, EE), whose new year occurs approximately mid-September. Therefore, an Ethiopian year contains roughly the last quarter of a Gregorian year and the first three quarters of the next.

Step 1

Ethiopian dates are read from left to right and are written in Ge'ez script. Using the table below, locate a sequence of numerals.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 10,000

Step 2

Ethiopian numbers are calculated using the following rules:

If a number is followed by a smaller number, add. If a number is followed by a larger number, multiply.
In most cases, the larger number is a power of 100. Then, add 7 to get the first Gregorian year the Ethiopian year spans. See the examples below.

Example Math EE-AD Conversion (+7)
፲ ፰ ፻ ፺ ፭ (10 + 8) x 100 + 90 + 5 = 1895 EE1895 = AD1902 - AD1903
፲ ፱ ፻ ፴ ፮ (10 + 9) x 100 + 30 + 6 = 1936 EE1963 = AD1943 - AD1944
፳ ፻ ፪ 20 x 100 + 2 = 2002 EE2002 = AD2009 - AD2010