Understanding Leap Years in Python: Everything You Need to Know

Mastering Leap Year Calculations and Handling in Python

Photo by Cristian Escobar on Unsplash

Have you ever wondered how Python handles leap years? Leap years, occurring once every four years, can be tricky to manage in date-related tasks.

In this guide, we’ll dive deep into leap years in Python, covering everything from understanding leap year rules to practical examples of handling leap years in your code.

Understanding Leap Years

A leap year is a year that is evenly divisible by 4, except for years that are evenly divisible by 100. However, years that are evenly divisible by 400 are still considered leap years. Let’s explore how to check if a year is a leap year in Python:

def is_leap_year(year):
    if year % 4 == 0:
        if year % 100 == 0:
            if year % 400 == 0:
                return True
            else:
                return False
        else:
            return True
    else:
        return False

# Check if a year is a leap year
year = 2024
if is_leap_year(year):
    print(f"{year} is a leap year.")
else:
    print(f"{year} is not a leap year.")

Practical Examples