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By law, "the Sundays and the public holidays remain protected as days of rest from work and of spiritual elevation" (Art. 139 WRV, part of the German constitution via Art. 140 GG). Thus all Sundays are, in a manner, public holidays – but usually not understood by the term "holiday" (except for, normally, Easter Sunday and Pentecost Sunday).
Public holidays apart from the Sundays (there must be some of them constitutionally) can be declared by law by either the Federation or the Länder for their respective jurisdictions. By federal law, only the German Unity Day is made a holiday at present (Unity Treaty, Art. 2 sect. 2); the others, even the ones celebrated all over Germany, are made holidays by state legislation.
✔ – Public holiday is celebrated in that state.
In addition, the state of Brandenburg formally declared Easter Sunday and Pentecost Sunday as public holidays. As these are Sundays anyway, they have been left out by the other states, nor counted in the table above (the state of Hesse even declared all Sundays public holidays).
A couple of days are designated stille Tage (quiet days) by state legislation, which regularly means that public dancing events, music at inns (if live or if not much quieter than usual) etc. are prohibited.
Some public holidays are quiet days:
One de facto public holiday (not determined by law, because it is always on a Sunday, but with officially organized celebrations) is a quiet day:
One other Sunday is a quiet day:
Some days may be quiet days without being public holidays:
In a limited number of cases – apart from All Saints which, however, has long been associated in popular understanding with remembrance of the dead. The status of quiet days is also given to festivities joyous in nature: in Hesse, the highest Christian holidays are half-quiet days (until midday) and in Rhineland-Palatinate, Easter Sunday and Christmas Day are two-thirds-quiet days (until 16 o'clock). For details see the German article on the dancing ban.
A yet third category that may sometimes be called "holidays" in a sense are the "flag days" (Beflaggungstage). Only the very highest institutions and the military use the national flags at every day, so the directives when flags are to be displayed mark the days in question as special.
Flags are to be shown by Federal Decree on
and by state decrees on other days, such as election days for state parliaments, state constitution days, anniversary of the election of the Federal President (in Berlin) and so forth.
Frequently flags are ordered ad hoc to be shown at half-mast in cases of national mourning.
Either Carnival Monday ("Rosenmontag") or Mardi Gras is a de facto holiday in some towns and cities in Catholic western and southern Germany which have a strong Carnival tradition.
Also, Christmas Eve is developing into a semi-holiday: from mid-afternoon it is practically treated as a holiday, and while shops still open in the morning, for other businesses (apart from those that work even on holidays) this is becoming increasingly unusual; schools are closed in any case.[ citation needed ]
Ascension Day (Christi Himmelfahrt) and Corpus Christi (Fronleichnam) are both always on Thursdays. By taking only one day's leave, employees can have a four-day weekend.
The Three Kings Day, better known as Epiphany, is 6 January, the day after the 12 days of Christmas. In parts of Germany, it has its own local customs.
Holiday | Local name | Date | Remarks |
---|---|---|---|
New Year | Neujahr | 1 January | |
Good Friday | Karfreitag | Easter Sunday – 2d | |
Easter Monday | Ostermontag | Easter Sunday + 1d | until 1967 and in 1990 |
Labour Day | Internationaler Kampf- und Feiertag der Werktätigen für Frieden und Sozialismus | 1 May | |
Liberation Day | Tag der Befreiung | 8 May | until 1967 and in 1985 |
Victory Day | Tag des Sieges | 9 May | only in 1975 |
Ascension Day | Christi Himmelfahrt | Easter Sunday + 39d | until 1967 and in 1990 |
Whit Monday | Pfingstmontag | Easter Sunday + 50d | |
Day of the Republic | Tag der Republik | 7 October | |
Reformation Day | Reformationstag | 31 October | until 1966 |
Day of Repentance and Prayer | Buß- und Bettag | Wed. before 23 November | until 1966 |
Christmas Day | 1. Weihnachtsfeiertag | 25 December | |
St Stephen's Day / Boxing Day | 2. Weihnachtsfeiertag | 26 December |
Public holidays in Australia refer to the holidays recognised in law in Australia. Although they are declared on a state and territory basis, they comprise a mixture of nationally celebrated days and holidays exclusive to the individual jurisdictions.
Customs and regulations for shopping hours vary between countries and between cities.
All official holidays in Finland are established by acts of Parliament. The official holidays can be divided into Christian and non-Christian holidays. The main Christian holidays are Christmas, New Year's Day, Epiphany, Easter, Ascension day, Pentecost, Midsummer Day, and All Saints' Day. The non-Christian holidays are May Day and the Independence Day of Finland.
In the Catholic Church, holy days of obligation or precepts are days on which the faithful are expected to attend Mass, and engage in rest from work and recreation, according to the third commandment.
The Feast of Corpus Christi, also known as the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, is a Christian liturgical solemnity celebrating the Real Presence of the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus in the elements of the Eucharist; it is observed by the Latin Church, in addition to certain Western Orthodox, Lutheran, and Anglican churches. Two months earlier, the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper is observed on Maundy Thursday in a sombre atmosphere leading to Good Friday. The liturgy on that day also commemorates Christ's washing of the disciples' feet, the institution of the priesthood, and the agony in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Reformation Day is a Protestant Christian religious holiday celebrated on 31 October in remembrance of the onset of the Reformation.
In the United States, public holidays are set by federal, state, and local governments and are often observed by closing government offices or giving government employees paid time off. The federal government does not require any private business to close or offer paid time off, as is the case for most state local governments, so employers determine which holidays to observe.
Holidays in Poland are regulated by the Non-working Days Act of 18 January 1951. The Act, as amended in 2010, currently defines thirteen public holidays.
A long weekend is a weekend that is at least three days long, due to a public or unofficial holiday occurring on either the following Monday or preceding Friday.
Public holidays in Italy are established by the Italian parliament and, with the exception of city or community patronal days, apply nationwide. These include a mix of national, religious and local observances. As for Whit Monday, there is an exception for South Tyrol. In Italy there are also State commemoration days, which are not public holidays.
The following is the list of official public holidays recognized by the Government of Russia. On these days, government offices, embassies and some shops, are closed. If the date of observance falls on a weekend, the following Monday will be a day off in lieu of the holiday.
An academic year is "the year during which students attend school or university". An academic year or school year is a period that schools, colleges and universities use to measure the quantity of study. During this period, students attend classes and do relevant exams and homework. It comprises school days and school holidays. Duration of school days, school year, and holidays vary across the world.
All Saints' Day, also known as All Hallows' Day, the Feast of All Saints, the Feast of All Hallows, the Solemnity of All Saints, and Hallowmas, is a Christian solemnity celebrated in honour of all the saints of the Church, whether they are known or unknown.
Lists of holidays by various categorizations.
The following are 11 public holidays in Ukraine.
In Sweden, public holidays are established by acts of Parliament. The official holidays can be divided into Christian and non-Christian holidays. The Christian holidays are jul (Christmas), trettondedag jul (Epiphany), påsk (Easter), Kristi himmelsfärds dag, pingstdagen (Pentecost), and alla helgons dag. The non-Christian holidays are: nyårsdagen, första maj, Sveriges nationaldag, and midsommar (Midsummer). Midsummer is, however, officially also a Christian holiday to celebrate John the Baptist's birthday.
Buß- und Bettag was a public holiday in Germany, and is still a public holiday in Saxony. In Germany, Protestant church bodies of Lutheran, Reformed (Calvinist) and United denominations celebrate a day of repentance and prayer. It is now celebrated on the penultimate Wednesday before the beginning of the Protestant liturgical year on the first Sunday of Advent; in other words, it is the Wednesday that falls between 16 and 22 November. However, it is not a statutory non-working holiday any more, except in the Free State of Saxony. In the Free State of Bavaria, it is a school holiday only.
Prior to the Reformation of 1560, Christmas in Scotland, then called "Yule" or in Gaelic-speaking areas "Nollaig", was celebrated in a similar fashion to the rest of Catholic Europe. Calderwood recorded that in 1545, a few months before his murder, Cardinal Beaton had "passed over the Christmasse dayes with games and feasting". However, the Reformation transformed attitudes to traditional Christian feasting days, including Christmas, and led in practice to the abolition of festival days and other church holidays; the Kirk and the state being closely linked in Scotland during the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. A 1640 Act of the Parliament of Scotland abolished the "Yule vacation and all observation thereof in time coming".
Public holidays in Rhodesia, a historical region in southern Africa equivalent to today's Zimbabwe and Zambia—formerly Southern and Northern Rhodesia, respectively—were largely based around milestones in the region's short history. Annual holidays marked various aspects of the arrival of white people during the 1880s and 1890s, as well as the respective unilateral declarations of independence (1965) and of republican government (1970). On these days, most businesses and non-essential services closed. A number of Christian holidays were also observed according to custom, in the traditional British manner, and referred to in official documents by name—Christmas Day, for example, or Easter Monday.
The next German federal election will be held on or before 26 October 2025 to elect the members of the 21st Bundestag.