Vuosisadat

Vuosisata is a period of one hundred consecutive years. The term is a Finnish compound of vuosi, meaning year, and sata, meaning hundred. The plural vuosisadat refers to multiple such periods and is used when discussing longer stretches of time.

In historical dating, vuosisadat serve as a convenient way to frame broad eras. Strictly, centuries are numbered from the beginning of the Common Era: the 1st century includes the years 1–100, the 2nd century covers 101–200, and so on. By this convention, the 20th century spans 1901–2000. In everyday Finnish, people often speak of the “1900-luku” or the 1900s to refer to the century or to the decades around that period, which can be informal and context-dependent.

Historically, centuries are used to compare and analyze long-term changes in politics, technology, culture, and society. They provide a framework for organizing events and developments that occur over generations, as well as for observing patterns that recur or shift over time. While precise dating uses years, vuosisadat remain a common and practical reference in scholarly and popular writing.

See also: century, calendar eras, chronology.