National Day

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from List of National Days)
Jump to: navigation, search
 This article does not cite any references or sources. (May 2007)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

The National Day is a designated date on which celebrations mark the nationhood of a country. Often the National Day will be a national holiday.

The National Day is often taken as the date on which a state or territory achieved independence. Other dates such as the country's patron saint day, or a significant historic date are sometimes used. Most countries have a single National Day per year, though a few, for example, India and Pakistan, have more than one. Besides that, each of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China, namely Hong Kong and Macao, celebrate the day of the establishment of the special administrative region, as well as the National Day of the People's Republic of China.

The importance attached to the National Day, and the degree to which it is celebrated, vary enormously from country to country. In France, for example, National Day is 14 July and is known as the Fête nationale (only outside France is it called Bastille Day). It is widely celebrated and the French Tricolour is much in evidence, while the President of the Republic attends a military parade on the Champs-Élysées of Paris. In the United States, the Fourth of July celebrations are widely celebrated with fireworks and barbecues. In the Republic of Ireland, St. Patrick's Day, March 17, has been the National Day and a Public Holiday for many years, and in recent years it has been observed as a full Public Holiday in Northern Ireland too. However, in the rest of the United Kingdom the constituent countries' patron saints' days are low-key affairs. In recent times campaigns have commenced to promote the National Days of England, Scotland and Wales, with St Andrew's Day being designated as an official bank holiday when the Scottish Parliament passed the St Andrew's Day Bank Holiday (Scotland) Act 2007. A national day for the United Kingdom has also been proposed in recent years.

Most countries have a fixed date National Day, but some have movable dates. An example here is Jamaica, which celebrates its National Day on the first Monday in August. This commemorates independence from the United Kingdom which was attained on Monday, 6 August 1962 - the first Monday in August of that year. Another example is Thailand which celebrates the birthday of the King on 5 December. This date will change on the accession of the heir to the throne.

Contents: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

See also

Holidays Portal
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Day"
Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.