I noticed that much people have problems with combining a century with a year. A lot of people would say that a year 1250 is 12th century because there is a 12 at the beginning of that year. Well, it's not. It goes like this for example:
900 - 999 -> 10th century,
1000 - 1099 -> 11th century,
1100 - 1199 -> 12th century,
1200 - 1299 -> 13th century, and so on...

Sorry if I sound like a smartass right now, it's not my intention, I just think this will be helpful for some people confused with these things...

I had this problem when I was little, but caught on later when I kept hearing it the other way around. *Shrugs* Can't say I've ever talked to someone who was getting it wrong, but for the most part I don't discuss that kind of thing with the average person.

Ummmmm... Carry on. ;)

Back in school my english teacher once told me that there are countries in the world where 1250 would be in the 12th century because they count the centuries differently. Sadly I have forgotten which country he was talking about and guessing might cause some offence to some people.

Also I don't quite know how people counting like that would refer to the first century.
But anyway, if he was right that might be why many people use this differently to what we would expect.

Edit: After a quick look over at Wikipedia there are two things to add, first of all, there are these countries - namely Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland - though I guess their way of counting only works in their language.
Secondly, the 10th Century would be from 901 to 1000 since there is no year 0 you always start a century with the year ending in 1 and count upwards till you get a year with 00 at the end.

Just a short confirmation that this is true for Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia, and many Scandinavians occasionally fall back to the Scandinavian "century system", even when writing in English. It is really not any less logical to consider 1250 to still be part of the 12th century. Just a bit rarer. :)

I don't get the Scandanavian system at all. What would you call years 1 to 100? The 0th century? The century before I started counting? The "shhh don't talk about that one" century?

I see why this might seem confusing to Norwegians. When saying the 13th cent. in Norwegian, you're usually saying "tolvhundretallet" (i.e. the era of twelve hundred), but "det tolvte århundre" (literally the 12th century) is of course the 1100's. I don't really know if this is something people consider, but I have indeed met people who got very confused talking about this.

We do something like that in English, we say 1200s, which is the 13th century (mostly) and 1900s for the 20th.

I do this every world history class I teach. it is even better when you have to hit BC/AD (BCE/CE). Wait the kingdom lasted from 300 to 100....

RPM

Luka, don't feel bad. Just about the whole world celebrated the new millinia a year early on January 1st, 2000.

I'd like to note that the "Scandinavian system" is actually also used in English - it's just phrased as "1200s" for the 13th Century, for example.

Mikko,

I said that same thing above. we are looking at two systems that are actually very similar.

RPM

So, in German books when it says 13 Jh (Jahrhundert) I've always taken that to mean 13th century (1200s) as opposed to 1300s. Am I correct in that assumption?

Yes, you´re correct. Around here, we only use that system.