Counter for ordinal dates?

Question

More information about ordinal dates here.

Say I have the ordinal date 2016-162 (the 162^nd day of the year 2016, which would be Friday, June 10, 2016). Could I write it like this in Japanese:

２０１６年１６２日目

Also, say I wanted to refer to the date in the same way in a sentence. Would something like this:

２０１６年は１６２日目です。

(As for the year 2016, it’s the 162^nd day.)

be valid?

Answer 1

2016年162日目

You can write in this way only if you can be sure that the reader is ready to see ordinal dates. For example, it's probably safe to write like this when you have already explained ordinal dates in your scientific article about calendar.

However, most Japanese people are not familiar with ordinal dates, so when you want to make yourself understood to laypeople, you have to say more verbosely:

• 2016年の中の162日目
• 2016年1月1日から数えて162日目

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And regarding this sentence,

2016年は162日目です。

This would make sense in a context like this:

A: 「6月10日は2016年の何日目ですか？」
B: (seeing this)「161日目です。あ、違う。2016年は162日目です。うるう年なので。」

Perhaps I won't have a chance to say something like this in my entire life, but it's valid anyway.