Template:Start date and age

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{{Start date and age}} 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

• {{Start date and age|YYYY|MM|DD}} (year, month, and day)
• {{Start date and age|YYYY|MM|DD|df=yes}}
• {{Start date and age|YYYY|MM|DD|df=yes|p=yes|br=yes}}

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).
|3=	optional	A number between 1 and 31 indicating the day of the month (leading zeros in the number are ignored).
|df=	optional	When set to |df=yes or |df=y displays the day before the month (e.g. "7 November 2004" instead of the default "November 7, 2004").
|p= |paren=	optional	When set to |p=yes or |p=y the age will be displayed within parentheses. When this parameter is not included, the date and age are separated by a semicolon and a breaking space.
|br=	optional	When set to |br=yes or |br=y a line break will be inserted between the date and the age. When this parameter is not included, 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).

Examples

Default separator: semicolon

Syntax	Result
Full date (year, month, day)
{{Start date and age|2010|01|02}}	January 2, 2010 (2010-01-02)
{{Start date and age|2010|1|2|df=yes}}	2 January 2010 (2010-01-02)
{{Start date and age|2008|01|9|df=y}}	9 January 2008 (2008-01-09)
100 days ago: {{Start date and age|2025|4|18}}	April 18, 2025 (2025-04-18)
Yesterday: {{Start date and age|2025|7|26}}	July 26, 2025 (2025-07-26)
Today: {{Start date and age|2025|7|27}}	July 27, 2025 (2025-07-27)
Year and month
{{Start date and age|2001|9}}	September 2001 (2001-09)
{{Start date and age|2002|09}}	September 2002 (2002-09)
Year only
{{Start date and age|2005}}	2005 (2005)

Optional separator: parentheses

Syntax	Result
Full date (year, month, day)
{{Start date and age|2003|02|15|p=yes}}	February 15, 2003 (2003-02-15)
{{Start date and age|2003|02|15|df=y|p=y}}	15 February 2003 (2003-02-15)
Year and month
{{Start date and age|2003|02|p=y}}	February 2003 (2003-02)
Year only
{{Start date and age|2003|paren=yes}}	2003 (2003)

Line break with semicolon

Syntax	Result
Full date (year, month, day)
{{Start date and age|2003|02|15|br=yes}}	February 15, 2003 (2003-02-15)
{{Start date and age|2003|02|15|df=y|br=y}}	15 February 2003 (2003-02-15)
Year and month
{{Start date and age|2003|02|br=y}}	February 2003 (2003-02)
Year only
{{Start date and age|2003|br=yes}}	2003 (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 (2003-02-15)
{{Start date and age|2003|02|15|df=y|p=y|br=y}}	15 February 2003 (2003-02-15)
Year and month
{{Start date and age|2003|02|p=y|br=y}}	February 2003 (2003-02)
Year only
{{Start date and age|2003|paren=yes|br=yes}}	2003 (2003)

TemplateData

TemplateData documentation used by VisualEditor and other tools

See a monthly parameter usage report for Template:Start date and age in articles based on its TemplateData. TemplateData for Start date and age The Start date and age template displays the date that an event or entity started or was created. Template parameters Parameter Description Type Status Year 1 A four-digit number indicating the year Example 2017 Number required Month 2 A number between 1 and 12 indicating the month Example 12 Number suggested Day 3 A number between 1 and 31 indicating the day of the month Example 31 Number suggested Display date first df Set to 'yes' to show the day before the month name Suggested values yes y Line optional Display with parentheses paren p Set to 'yes' to display the age within parentheses. When this parameter is not included, the date and age are separated by a semicolon and a breaking space. Suggested values yes y Line optional Line break between date and age br Set to 'yes' to add a line break between the date and the age. When this parameter is not included, 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 paren=yes). Suggested values yes y Line optional

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:

• hAtom (class="updated")
• hAudio (class="published")
• hCalendar (class="dtstart")
• hCard (class="bday")

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, 2016 (2016-12-31)

  December&nbsp;31, 2016<span class="noprint">&#059;&#032;8 years ago</span><span style="display:none">&#160;(<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.

Tracking categories

• Category:Pages using start date an age with invalid values (0)
• Category:Pages using start date and age with unknown parameters (0)

See also

• {{Start date}}
• {{End date and age}}
• {{Time ago}} and {{Years or months ago}}
• {{Age}}

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