An observance of religious origin — which may close everything, or nothing at all.
A religious observance is one whose origin is a faith tradition. The corpus records 1,919 of them across eight traditions, and the category says nothing about whether anything closes: that is a separate field.
The distinction matters because the two vary independently. Christmas closes almost everything in most of Europe and nothing in Japan, where it is widely marked. Yom Kippur closes Israel and nothing in London, where a significant number of people are nonetheless absent.
For anyone planning across a mixed workforce, the religious category is more useful than the closure field, because it identifies the days people will observe whether or not the state recognises them.
The same corpus category, three traditions, three countries — and in each the closure status is recorded separately from the religious origin.
| 🇮🇳 | Tuesday 23 March 2027India | HoliCategory religious_hindu, and a general closure in India. |
| 🇮🇱 | Thursday 22 April 2027Israel | Passover — first dayCategory religious_jewish, computed exactly on the Hebrew calendar. |
| 🇯🇴 | Wednesday 6 January 2027Jordan | Isra and Mi'rajCategory religious_islamic, and recorded as observed without closing. |
Religious observance describes the origin. Public holiday describes the effect, and many religious observances close nothing.
Religious observance is a category within observance, which is the corpus's general unit.
See also observance · public holiday · observed but open · operational status
1,919 religious observances across eight traditions. See what we hold.