DoNOT use this template when the exact date of birth is disputed or unknown; consider{{Birth year}} instead.
This template is used onapproximately 447,000 pages. To avoid major disruption and server load, any changes should be tested in the template's/sandbox or/testcases subpages, or in your ownuser subpage. The tested changes can be added to this page in a single edit. Consider discussing changes on thetalk page before implementing them.
Template:Birth date will return a person's date of birth. Using this template rather than simply inserting the date into articles allows for the inclusion of hiddenmetadata about the date. This metadata can be used by web browsers and other software tools to extract the details, and display them using some other website or mapping tool, index, or search them.
This template is intended for use in an article about a dead person. For an article about a living person, consider using{{Birth date and age}} instead.
Usage
Unnamed parameters for year, month, day
{{Birth date|year of birth|month of birth|day of birth|additional parameters}}
Named parameters for year, month, day
{{Birth date|year=year of birth|month=month of birth|day=day of birth|additional parameters}}
Additional parameters
Thedf (day first) andmf (month first) parameters indicate the intended date format to display. The appropriate parameter should be set to "y" or "yes", e.g.|df=y or|df=yes.
The default output of this template is to display the month before the day. This default may not be appropriate for articles about people from parts of the world where the day precedes the month in a date. In such articles the parameter, "df", should be set to display the day before the month.
The parameter "mf", while not actually used by the template, will indicate that month first format is intended. Using these parameters can assistbots or other automated processing to detect which date format is intended; leaving the format as default may lead an editor or bot to change the format to an unintended value.
Do not specify both "df" and "mf" parameters in the same use of the template, as these formats are mutually exclusive.
hCard microformat
This template also returns the date, hidden by CSS, in theISO 8601 standard.[1][2] For example:
(<span>1993-02-24</span>)
Note: For the "foundation", "built" and similar set-up dates of companies, buildings etc., use{{start date}} (this will work for year-only or month-year dates). Because the ISO 8601 standard requires theGregorian calendar, this template should not be used if the date is given in theJulian calendar.
^"hCalendar closed issues".Microformats Wiki. August 28, 2009. Specifically rejects supporting the Julian calendar.
Notes
Do not use with non-Gregorian dates because the resulting hCard hidden date will be false.
The template will appear broken when the parameters are left blank.
When only the month or year of a person's birth and/or death are known, or if it is desired not to state a person's full dates of birth for privacy reasons, consider using the templates{{Birth year}} or{{Birth year and age}} instead.
This template will return a person's date of birth. Using this template rather than simply inserting the date into articles allows for the inclusion of hidden metadata about the date. This metadata can be used by web browsers and other software tools to extract the details, and display them using some other website or mapping tool, index, or search them.
To display approximate birth year and current age given a particular date (e.g. when a dated reference mentions the age of a person), only works for living people.
To display approximate birth year and current age given several particular dates (e.g. when a dated reference mentions the age of a person), only works for living people.
