A Leap year Consists of How Many Days

Q. A leap year consists of how many days?

Answer: According to NASA, a leap year occurs because the earth takes 365 1/4 days to rotate around the sun, i.e., one solar year (instead of a calendar year). This is why an extra day is added to the whole year on February 29th (i.e., leap day).

This extra day notes that the earth has completed another round around the sun.

Leap years occur every four years, but not in century years not divisible by 400.

Any year having four digits is known as a century year. (i.e., 1999 is a century year).

A leap year occurs only in 24 out of 100 century years, i.e., only once in four centuries.

Hence, a century year not divisible by 4 is not a leap year.

For example, 1700, 1800 and 1900 will not be counted in leap years.

On the other hand, 2000 was a leap year.

To calculate whether a given year is a leap year or not, we need to calculate its date about the Julian year.

A leap year is defined as follows:

Julian Year = 365 1/4 Days + 1 Day = 366 Days + 1 Day = (365 · 4) + 1 = 365 1/4 days.

Century years divisible by 100 and 400 are leap years, for example, 1600, 2000, 2400.