22/02/2022 and Palindromic Dates

Today 22/02/2022 is a palindrome (in dd/mm/yyyy format). Palindromes are fascinating because of the intrinsic beauty in reflections. However today is only a palindrome in the widely but not exclusively used day/month/year format with there being no month 22 in the month/day/year format used by illogical people and the USA. It is also not a palindrome in the yyyy/mm/dd format used by computer scientists all over the globe.

22/2/22 made of London Bus blinds

22/02/2022 is a palindrome when fully written out but fails at being one when you remove leading zeros. It is also not a palindrome when you remove the century we're in as it becomes 22/02/22. But interestingly if we remove both leading zeros and the century, we're left with 22/2/22 which is a palindrome and also a date with only one discrete number.

22/02/2022 as an expiry date on a packet of pancakes

22/2/22 because it's all the same number it is Palindromic in all date orders, even in the definitely subordinate mm/dd/yy format. 22/2/22 is the last palindromic date with the same number until 3/3/33 (3rd January 2033). But we have just missed 2/2/22.

Palindromes This Decade

As you have read there are many different date formats with whether a day is palindromic based on which format you're using.

dd/mm/yyyy

This is the complete list of fully written out (with leading zeros) of palindromes between 01/01/2020 and 31/12/2029.

  • 02/02/2020
  • 12/02/2021
  • 22/02/2022 (today)

As you can see today is the last palindrome of this format this decade with the next one 03/02/2030.

mm/dd/yyyy

Despite being the worst date format, I will include the palindromic dates just for completeness. Remember these include leading zeros.

  • 02/02/2020
  • 12/02/2021

There are only two palindromic dates in this format, further showing it is subordinate to other date formats.

yyyy/mm/dd

This format and mm/dd/yyyy have the same palindromic dates, when fully qualified, as the same parts of the date go to the same points when reflected (the last year digit goes the first month digit in both).

  • 2020/02/02
  • 2021/12/02

As with mm/dd/yyyy the next palindromic date in this format is 2030/03/02.

Dispensations

As we've seen there are very few palindromic dates when everything is fully qualified (but today 22/02/2022 is one). And, so we don't have an almost 8 year wait until 03/02/2030 for the next palindromic date, I've listed some alternative palindromes. These either have leading zeros removed (sometimes selectively), the century removed, both, or neither for a complete list for the the date types we've used.

dd/mm/yyyy

These dates are all in the current decade like the proper ones above.

  • 02/1/20
  • 02/2/20 (02/02/2020)
  • 02/3/20
  • 02/4/20
  • 02/5/20
  • 02/6/20
  • 02/7/20
  • 02/8/20
  • 02/9/20
  • 02/11/20
  • 12/1/21
  • 1/2/21
  • 12/2/21 (12/02/2021)
  • 12/3/21
  • 12/4/21
  • 12/5/21
  • 12/6/21
  • 12/7/21
  • 12/8/21
  • 12/9/21
  • 12/11/21
  • 22/1/22
  • 2/2/22
  • 22/2/22 (22/02/2022)
  • 22/3/22
  • 22/4/22
  • 22/5/22
  • 22/6/22
  • 22/7/22
  • 22/8/22
  • 22/9/22
  • 22/11/22
  • 3/2/23
  • 4/2/24
  • 5/2/25
  • 6/2/26
  • 7/2/27
  • 8/2/28
  • 9/2/29

The dates in this list are mostly in the first 3 years of the decade with only one per year from 2023. This means that we need to make the most of the palindromic dates this year before they become much rarer.

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