Photo: Getty Images
Photo: Getty Images

How Many Weeks Are There In a Year

A normal year in the 'modern' calendar has 365 days, which, when divided by 7 (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday) equals 52.1428571 weeks.

Every four years, there is a leap year*, adding an extra day into the calendar (pity those 17 year olds born on February 29th 2000, who have only had 4 true birthdays). In this case, the calculation is 366 divided by 7, which equals 52.2857, so it's still just 52 weeks.

This is all based upon the Gregorian calendar (introduced back in 1582), which cycles every 400 years. If you want to go a step further and work out the average number of weeks in a year across the full Gregorian calendar, you'll find that a year works out at 365.2425 days. When divided by 7 it gives you a total of 52.1775 weeks.

Weeks in a common Year

One calendar common year has 365 days:

1 common year = 365 days = (365 days) / (7 days/week) = 52.143 weeks = 52 weeks + 1 day

Weeks in a leap year

Photo: Getty Images
Photo: Getty Images

One calendar leap year occures every 4 years, except for years that are divisable by 100 and not divisable by 400.

One calendar leap year has 366 days, when February has 29 days:

1 leap year = 366 days = (366 days) / (7 days/week) = 52.286 weeks = 52 weeks + 2 days

Summary of years

Year type Number of days Number of weeks Comments
Lunar 354.37 50.6242857 Muslim calendar year
Common year 365 52.1428571
Gregorian (average) 365.2425 52.1775
Julian 365.25 52.1785714 used in astronomy (computing the distance covered by a light-year, etc)
Leap year 366 52.2857143
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Here's a table to show you how common years from the Gregorian calendar are broken down into weeks and days:

Weeks in a year table

Year Number of weeks Number of days Leap year?
2015 52 weeks and 1 day 365 -
2016 52 weeks and 2 days 366 yes
2017 52 weeks and 1 day 365 -
2018 52 weeks and 1 day 365 -
2019 52 weeks and 1 day 365 -
2020 52 weeks and 2 days 366 yes
2021 52 weeks and 1 day 365 -
2022 52 weeks and 1 day 365 -
2023 52 weeks and 1 day 365 -
2024 52 weeks and 2 days 366 yes
2025 52 weeks and 1 day 365 -

The exception to the "52 weeks" rule pops up if you're using a fancy academic journal or office wall planner; sometimes they number the weeks based on them running from Sunday to Saturday, or Monday to Sunday, breaking up the first and last weeks of the year to fit this mould. Although there are still only 52 weeks in the year, and time doesn't magically slow down**, the way a calendar like that counts fragments at the start and end of the year might mean that the weeks are numbered as high as 54. E.g.:

WEEK 1: Thursday 1 January, Friday 2 January, Saturday 3 January, Sunday 4 January

WEEK 2: Monday 5 January, Tuesday 6 January...

An extra note about leap years...

Leap years exist to correct a small margin of error in our annual calendars. A complete orbit of the sun actually takes Earth 365 days and 5 hours, 48 minutes. To compensate for the extra time, every 4 years we add an extra day to the calendar to maintain accuracy (otherwise we would be out by 24 more days every century).

There are 3 criteria to determine a leap year. Julius Caesar introduced the idea 2000 years ago, defining any year which could be cleanly divided by 4 as a leap year. However, this made too many leap years and would still create an imbalance of time, so there is a checklist of 3 features any leap year should have...

Leap year checklist

The number of the year can be divided by 4

If the year can be divided by 100, then it's NOT a leap year, except...

If it can also be divided by 400, in which case, OK, it's a leap year.

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