Template:Start date and age
 | This template is used on approximately 133,000 pages. To avoid major disruption and server load, any changes should be tested in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. The tested changes can be added to this page in a single edit. Consider discussing changes on the talk page before implementing them. |
The {{Start date and age}} template displays the date that an event or entity started or was created. It also includes a duplicate, machine-readable date in the ISO 8601 format (which is hidden by CSS), for use inside other templates which emit microformats. The hidden date degrades gracefully when CSS is not available.
Usage
- Common usage
{{Start date and age|yyyy|mm|dd}}to display formatted as:- March 25, 2010
{{Start date and age|yyyy|mm|dd|df=yes}}to display formatted as:- 25 March 2010
- Full syntax
{{Start date and age|yyyy|mm|dd|df=yes|p=yes|br=yes}}to display formatted as:- 25 March 2010
Parameters
| Parameter | Status | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | required | A four-digit number indicating the year. |
| 2 | optional | A number between 1 and 12 indicating the month (leading zeros in the number are ignored). The month may also be specified as a name or abbreviation (e.g. "August" or "Aug"). |
| 3 | optional | A number between 1 and 31 indicating the day of the month (leading zeros in the number are ignored). |
| df= | optional | If the parameter df equals yes, y, or 1, the date will be displayed in DMY format: 4 March 2010. When this parameter is not included or set to some other value, the date will be displayed in MDY format: March 4, 2010. |
| p= paren= |
optional | If the parameter p or paren equals yes, y, or 1, the age will be displayed within parentheses. When this parameter is not included or set to some other value, the date and age are separated by a semicolon and a breaking space. |
| br= | optional | If the parameter br equals yes, y, or 1, a line break will be inserted between the date and the age. When this parameter is not included or set to some other value, a breaking space will be inserted between the date and the age. This does not change the separating characters between the date and age which are either a semicolon (default setting) or parentheses (if p=yes). |
| end= | optional | This template includes hidden microformat <span>, similar to Template:Start date. If the parameter end equals yes, y, or 1, the template will instead use <span>, similar to Template:End date. This parameter is used by Template:End date and age. For more details, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Microformats.
|
"df" (day first) and "mf" (month first)
The default output of this template is to display the month before the day (MDY). This default may not be appropriate for articles about events or entities in parts of the world where dates are commonly given with the day preceding the month (DMY). To display the day first, assign the df parameter a value of yes, y, or 1 (e.g. df=yes).
If the default format is preferred, the parameter df may be used with value of no, n, or 0 (e.g. df=no). These values can assist bots or other automated processing to detect the intended date format; omitting the df parameter may lead an editor or bot to change the format to an unintended value.
The preference to display the month first may also be indicated via the parameter mf (e.g. mf=yes). While not actually used by the template, this is another method of indicating that the default format is intended. Do not specify both "df" and "mf" parameters in the same use of the template.
Examples
Default separator: semicolon
| Syntax | Result |
|---|---|
| Full date (year, month, day) | |
| {{Start date and age|2010|01|02}} | January 2, 2010 |
| {{Start date and age|2008|Jan|09|df=no}} | January 9, 2008 |
| {{Start date and age|2003|January|05|mf=yes}} | January 5, 2003 |
| {{Start date and age|2010|1|2|df=yes}} | 2 January 2010 |
| {{Start date and age|2008|Jan|9|df=y}} | 9 January 2008 |
| {{Start date and age|2003|January|5|df=1}} | 5 January 2003 |
| 100 days ago: {{Start date and age|2025|2|20}} |
February 20, 2025 |
| Yesterday: {{Start date and age|2025|5|30}} |
May 30, 2025 |
| Today: {{Start date and age|2025|5|31}} |
May 31, 2025 |
| Year and month | |
| {{Start date and age|2001|9}} | September 2001 |
| {{Start date and age|2002|09}} | September 2002 |
| {{Start date and age|2003|Sep}} | September 2003 |
| {{Start date and age|2004|September}} | September 2004 |
| Year only | |
| {{Start date and age|2005}} | 2005 |
Optional separator: parentheses
| Syntax | Result |
|---|---|
| Full date (year, month, day) | |
| {{Start date and age|2003|02|15|p=yes}} | February 15, 2003 |
| {{Start date and age|2003|02|15|df=y|p=y}} | 15 February 2003 |
| Year and month | |
| {{Start date and age|2003|02|p=1}} | February 2003 |
| Year only | |
| {{Start date and age|2003|paren=yes}} | 2003 |
Line break with semicolon
| Syntax | Result |
|---|---|
| Full date (year, month, day) | |
| {{Start date and age|2003|02|15|br=yes}} | February 15, 2003 |
| {{Start date and age|2003|02|15|df=y|br=y}} | 15 February 2003 |
| Year and month | |
| {{Start date and age|2003|02|br=1}} | February 2003 |
| Year only | |
| {{Start date and age|2003|br=yes}} | 2003 |
Line break with parentheses
| Syntax | Result |
|---|---|
| Full date (year, month, day) | |
| {{Start date and age|2003|02|15|p=yes|br=yes}} | February 15, 2003 |
| {{Start date and age|2003|02|15|df=y|p=y|br=y}} | 15 February 2003 |
| Year and month | |
| {{Start date and age|2003|02|p=1|br=1}} | February 2003 |
| Year only | |
| {{Start date and age|2003|paren=yes|br=yes}} | 2003 |
Use in microformats
This template also returns the date, hidden by CSS, in the ISO 8601 format needed by one or more of the following microformats:
usually, but not always, within infobox or similar templates, or tables.
Its use in hCard is for organizations, venues and similar; use {{Birth date}} or {{Birth date and age}} for people.
Similarly, {{End date}} returns the date as hCalendar's (class="dtend").
See the microformats project for further details.
Limitation
This template has no provision to deal with a date in a non-Gregorian calendar. Also, ISO 8601 requires mutual agreement among those exchanging information before using years outside the range 1583–9999 CE. Therefore, use of this template for non-Gregorian dates or dates outside that range constitutes a false claim of conformance to the ISO 8601 standard.
Any editor encountering such usage should change the date to plain text with no template; or if not confident in doing so, raise the matter on this template's talk page.
Example
{{Start date and age|2016|12|31}}→ December 31, 2016December 31, 2016<span class="noprint">; 8 years ago</span><span style="display:none"> (<span class="bday dtstart published updated">2016-12-31</span>)</span>
Usage in articles
This template is most often used in infoboxes in articles about buildings or organizations, identifying when they were started/founded/opened or dissolved/ended/closed.
It has also been used for naval ships to indicate their commissioned age, however several Wikipedia editors have reverted such edits. Use of this template in ship articles is therefore not recommended.
Supporting templates
- Template:MONTHNAME – display name of month for a given number 1 (January) through 12 (December).
- Template:Time ago – display number of days, months, or years ago (for dates given as
|yyyy|mm|dd). - Template:Years or months ago – display number of months or years ago (for dates given as
|yyyy|mmor|yyyy). - Template:Yesno – allows optional formatting parameters to accept values other than "yes" (such as "y" or "1").
See also
- {{Start date}}
- {{Time ago}} and {{Years or months ago}}
- {{Age}}
TemplateData
TemplateData documentation used by VisualEditor and other tools
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