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A holiday is a day or other period of time set aside for festivals or recreation. Public holidays are set by public authorities and vary by state or region. Religious holidays are set by religious organisations for their members and are often also observed as public holidays in religious majority countries. Some religious holidays, such as Christmas, have become secularised by part or all of those who observe them. In addition to secularisation, many holidays have become commercialised due to the growth of industry.
A public holiday, national holiday, federal holiday, statutory holiday, or legal holiday is a holiday generally established by law and is usually a non-working day during the year.
A bank holiday is a national public holiday in the United Kingdom and the Crown Dependencies, and a colloquial term for a public holiday in the Republic of Ireland. In the United Kingdom, the term refers to all public holidays, be they set out in statute, declared by royal proclamation, or held by convention under common law. In the Republic of Ireland, there are some bank holidays which are not public holidays.
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.
Public Holidays in India also known as Government Holidays colloquially, consist of a variety of cultural, nationalistic, and religious holidays that are legislated in India at the union or state levels.
Bangladesh has numerous public holidays, including national memorial, religious and secular holidays of Bengali origin. The Bengali traditional calendar, known as Baṅgābda is the national and official calendar in Bangladesh. The holidays are celebrated according to Bengali, Islamic or Gregorian calendars for religious and civil purposes, respectively. Religious festivals like Eid are celebrated according to the Islamic calendar, whereas other national holidays are celebrated according to the Bengali and Gregorian calendar. While, the Islamic calendar is based on the movement of the moon, it loses synchronization with the seasons, through seasonal drift. Therefore, some public holidays are subject to change every year based on the lunar calendar.
Public holidays in the Philippines are of two types: regular holidays and special non-working days.
The King's Official Birthday is the selected day in most Commonwealth realms on which the birthday of the monarch is officially celebrated in those countries. It does not necessarily correspond to the date of the monarch's actual birth.
Public holidays in Canada, known as statutory holidays, stat holidays, or simply stats, consist of a variety of cultural, nationalistic, and religious holidays that are legislated in Canada at the federal or provincial and territorial levels. While many of these holidays are honoured and acknowledged nationwide, provincial and territorial legislation varies in regard to which are officially recognized.
There are currently seven official public holidays on Mainland China. Each year's holidays are announced about three weeks before the start of the year by the General Office of the State Council. A notable feature of mainland Chinese holidays is that weekends are usually swapped with the weekdays next to the actual holiday to create a longer holiday period.
According to Greek law every Sunday of the year is a public holiday. In addition, there are nine mandatory, official public holidays: New Year's Day, 6 January, 25 March, Orthodox Easter Monday, 1 May, 15 August, 28 October, 25 December and 26 December. There are, however, more public holidays celebrated in Greece than are announced by the Ministry of Labour each year as mandatory. The list of these non-fixed National Holidays rarely changes and has not changed in recent decades, giving a total of twelve National Holidays each year.
The schedule of 11 public holidays in Singapore which are gazetted and recognized since the establishment of Singapore's 1998 Holidays Act.
In the United Kingdom, public holidays are days on which most businesses and non-essential services are closed. Many retail businesses do open on some of the public holidays. There are restrictions on trading on Sundays, Easter and Christmas Day in England and Wales and on New Year's Day and Christmas Day in Scotland. Public holidays defined by statute are called "bank holidays", but this term can also be used to include common law holidays, which are held by convention. The term "public holidays" can refer exclusively to common law holidays.
The 26 cantons that make up Switzerland set their public holidays independently – with the exception of 1 August, which is the only federal holiday. Furthermore, holidays can change depending on employers, and some holidays are specific to only a certain town or village. In general, the most reliable list of holidays for a given area will be found in a list of bank shops and offices close during bank holidays.
Buddha's Birthday or Buddha Day is a primarily Buddhist festival that is celebrated in most of South, Southeast and East Asia, commemorating the birth of the prince Siddhartha Gautama, who became the Gautama Buddha and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition and archaeologists, Gautama Buddha, c. 563-483 BCE, was born at Lumbini in Nepal. Buddha's mother was Queen Maya Devi, who delivered the Buddha while undertaking a journey to her native home, and his father was King Śuddhodana. The Mayadevi Temple, its gardens, and an Ashoka Pillar dating from 249 BCE mark the Buddha's birthplace at Lumbini.
The European Union does not set public holidays for its member states. However the European Commission does set public holidays for the employees of the institutions of the European Union.
Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in October and November in the United States, Canada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil, Germany and the Philippines. It is also observed in the Dutch town of Leiden and the Australian territory of Norfolk Island. It began as a day of giving thanks for the blessings of the harvest and of the preceding year. Various similarly named harvest festival holidays occur throughout the world during autumn. Although Thanksgiving has historical roots in religious and cultural traditions, it has long been celebrated as a secular holiday as well.
Lists of holidays by various categorizations.
Nepal uses three official calendar systems, including the Vikram Samvat as the main and national calendar as well as for Buddhist/Hindu holidays, the Nepal Sambat and the Gregorian calendar for international events and holidays.
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