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EntityQ6428674· pop 38· linked from 275 articles

Also known as period of time

An era is a span of time defined for the purposes of chronology or historiography, as in the regnal eras in the history of a given monarchy, a calendar era used for a given calendar, or the geological eras defined for the history of Earth.

~6 min read

Encyclopedic overview

9 sections
Contents
  • Etymology
  • Use in chronology
  • Geological era
  • Cosmological era
  • Calendar eras
  • Regnal eras
  • Historiography
  • See also
  • References

An era is a span of time defined for the purposes of chronology or historiography, as in the regnal eras in the history of a given monarchy, a calendar era used for a given calendar, or the geological eras defined for the history of Earth.

Comparable terms are Epoch, age, period, saeculum, aeon (Greek aion) and yuga (Sanskrit युग).

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “era” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.