Five fact about the Queen’s record reign

Q: What record will the Queen hold?

A: On September 9, the Queen will overtake the record held by Queen Victoria - her great-great grandmother - and become Britain’s longest reigning monarch.

Q: How long will the Queen have reigned for on September 9?

A: She will have reigned for 23,226 days 16 hours and approximately 30 minutes when she becomes the record holder at around 5.30pm - or a little later depending on the calculations - on September 9. Queen Victoria reigned for 23,226 days, 16 hours and 23 minutes.

Q: How long is the Queen’s reign in minutes?

A: When the Queen passes the record, she will have been monarch for around 33,446,430 minutes - or approximately 2,006,785,800 seconds.

Q: How is the record calculated?

It is complicated. It depends on the time of death of the Queen’s father, King George VI. This is hard to pinpoint as he died in his sleep in the early hours of February 6 1952, possibly at around 1am.

Extra leap days since the Queen came to the throne also need adding in. Queen Victoria’s reign is calculated from the time of the death of her uncle, King William IV, on June 20 1837 to her own death on January 22 1901, using evidence of timings from both diary entries and official reports.

There are different ways of working out the total reign, but Buckingham Palace considers the total number of days plus hours and minutes to be the most accurate.

Q: What does the Queen think about all this?

A: It is widely known that the Queen is not really interested in such records and some say she sees it as disrespectful to her ancestors. She prefers a no-fuss approach and traditionally spends September on her summer break at Balmoral. Her 90th birthday celebrations next year will be a bigger affair.

But she will emerge to mark the occasion, heading out and about in public by opening the new Scottish Borders Railway and travelling along the new route on a steam train with the Duke of Edinburgh and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

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