Japanese ToolkitJTK

Japanese Calendar Tools

Japanese official documents date by imperial era rather than by Western year. These tools convert between the two, and are careful about the years where an era changed mid-way — the case that catches most converters out.

Era Converter

Convert between Japanese imperial era years (和暦) and Western years, both directions.

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Converters

Convert between romaji, hiragana and katakana in your browser. Free, instant, and nothing you type leaves your device.

Text

Analyse Japanese text in your browser: count characters by script, and see how much of a passage is kanji, kana or Latin.

Frequently asked questions

Why does one year give two answers?

Because eras change mid-year. 1989 is Shōwa 64 until 7 January and Heisei 1 from the 8th, and 2019 is Heisei 31 until 30 April and Reiwa 1 from 1 May. A converter that returns only one of them is wrong for every document on the other side of the boundary.