Daikan (大寒): Major Cold

What Daikan means

Daikan is a chūki (中気, “middle”) term and falls in the middle of the Ox month. In the old lunisolar calendar, the month containing Daikan was the 12th month.

Customs and seasonal food around Daikan

Winter martial-arts training and brewing with icy water, leading up to Setsubun. In season: winter yellowtail and komatsuna greens.

The 72 kō of Daikan

Each solar term is divided again into three periods of about five days, the 72 kō (七十二候, “microseasons”). The names here follow the 1874 Ryakuhon-reki almanac. The first person to adapt the Chinese names to Japan's own climate was the astronomer Shibukawa Harumi, in the Jōkyō calendar of 1685.

1st kō: Butterbur buds appear (款冬華)

Butterbur buds (fuki-no-tō) begin to appear, a kō found only in Japan. In the coldest season of the year, they push up through the snow. The cold of this period was used to brew miso and sake and make freeze-dried tofu.

2nd kō: Mountain streams freeze thick (水沢腹堅)

Water in the marshes freezes solid, a name also found in the Senmyō calendar. The coldest time of the year, when record lows are common. Midwinter water was thought not to spoil and was used to brew sake and miso. Winter training and cold-water swims are held.

3rd kō: Hens start to lay (鶏始乳)

Hens begin to lay eggs; here 乳 means laying. In the Senmyō calendar this was the first kō of Daikan; in Japan it is the last. Hens traditionally laid most as the days lengthened in early spring. The final kō of the 72: people throw beans at Setsubun and prepare to welcome spring.

See all 24 solar terms and 72 kō, or today’s calendar.