Countries that use the (YYYY/MM/DD) date format

Posted by vladgrinch

48 Comments

  1. Love DD/MM/YYYY, but YYYY/MM/DD is acceptable, and useful in many cases, especially when naming files, but they both easily beat the ridiculous MM/DD/YYYY

  2. Way more countries use it in practice because it’s ISO standard for things like shipping and transit.

  3. The Canadian government uses this as well. The people use all three but it is “officially” YYYY/MM/DD

  4. I use it when writing in english because i dont want to confuse anyone, not the americans and not everyone else including myself

  5. Financial-Code8244 on

    I’ve seen all formats being used in Canada. When it’s year first it’s easy to understand, but if I read a date like 03/05/2026 it’s not exactly obvious if it’s March 5th or May 3rd.

  6. snow_garbanzo on

    No no, let not use hierarchical time measurement ,

    Let’s mix shit up ,

    I propose…month first, oh wait i think i already fucked this up.

  7. YYYY-MM-DD is superior because most digital systems can support – in filenames.

    Windows and several other systems use / for directory separation (as do websites), meaning YYYY/MM/DD on the functional level is incompatible with too many systems.

    Also, YYYY-MM-DD sorts alphabetically by date by default.

  8. MysteriousShape275 on

    ISO 8601 keeps my life in order. MM-DD-YYYY just wants to watch the world burn and also make you wonder if it’s March 5th or May 3rd while it’s at it.

  9. Slightly off topic, but if Americans hate the metric system so much why do they love their ammo so much?

  10. Kalorama_Master on

    In our international practice we adopted YYYY/MM/DD as well. Makes life so much easier.

    American format is the worst

  11. Apparently, the Americas are not part of the world. Particularly considering that YYYY-MM-DD is the standard date format for the Government of Canada.

  12. This format makes sense to get a list arranged in chronological order, but for everyday situations is more confusing.

  13. TheCattBaladi on

    This map is incorrect. A lot of countries use it. The majority of Arab countries this is the official way. Here in Egypt too.

  14. BasicSet6933 on

    Some of these countries put the family name before the given name. That map would look somewhat similar.

  15. Muffins_Hivemind on

    I love YYYY/MM/DD on the computer because it sorts the files by date across multiple years when they are in one folder. (Sorted by file name). It is elegant and easy and avoids the MM first or DD first confusion.

  16. gabor_legrady on

    I did know that this is not common (I am from Hungary) but shocked about the ratio.