Change of era

• February 11, 1804 : The new era name of Bunka ( meaning "Culture" or "Civilization") was created to mark the start of a new 60-year cycle of the Heavenly Stem and Earthly Branch system of the Chinese Calendar
  Chinese calendar
  The Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar, incorporating elements of a lunar calendar with those of a solar calendar. It is not exclusive to China, but followed by many other Asian cultures as well...
  
   which was on New Year's Day, the new moon day of 2 November 1804. The previous era ended and a new one commenced in Kyōwa
  Kyowa
  was a after Kansei and before Bunka. This period spanned the years from February 1801 through February 1804. The reigning emperor was .-Change of era:...
  
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Events of the Bunka era

• 1804 (Bunka 1): Daigaku-no kami Hayashi Jussai
  Hayashi Jussai
  was a Japanese neo-Confucian scholar of the Edo period. He was an hereditary rector of Edo’s Confucian Academy, the Shōhei-kō, also known at the Yushima Seidō, which was built on land provided by the shogun...
  
   (1768–1841) explained the shogunate foreign policy to Emperor Kōkaku in Kyoto.
• June 1805 (Bunka 2): Genpaku Sugita (1733–1817) is granted an audience with Shogun Ienari to explain differences between traditional medical knowledge and Western medical knowledge.
• September 25, 1810 (Bunka 7, 27th day of the 8thmonth): Earthquake in northern Honshū (Latitude: 39.900/Longitude: 139.900), 6.6 magnitude on the Richter Scale....Click link for NOAA/Japan: Significant Earthquake Database
• December 7, 1812 (Bunka 9, 4th day of the 11th month): Earthquake in Honshū (Latitude: 35.400/Longitude: 139.600), 6.6 magnitude on the Richter Scale.
• 1817 (Bunka 14): Emperor Kokaku travelled in procession to Sento Imperial Palace, a palace of an abdicated emperor. The Sento Palace at that time was called Sakura Machi Palace. It had been built by the Tokugawa Shogunate for former-Emperor Go-Mizunoo
  Emperor Go-Mizunoo
  was the 108th Emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession.Go-Mizunoo's reign spanned the years from 1611 through 1629.This 17th century sovereign was named after the 9th century Emperor Seiwa and , translates literally as "later;" and thus, he could be called the "Later...
  
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External links

• National Diet Library, "The Japanese Calendar" -- historical overview plus illustrative images from library's collection
• National Archives of Japan
  National Archives of Japan
  The preserve Japanese government documents and historical records and make them available to the public. Although Japan's reverence for its unique history and art is well documented and illustrated by collections of art and documents, there is almost no archivist tradition...
  
  : Sakuramachiden Gyokozu, scroll depicting Emperor Kōkaku in formal procession, 1817 (Bunka 14).