No Date (n.d.)
The abbreviation used when a source carries no identifiable publication date.
'n.d.' stands for 'no date' and occupies the year slot in a citation when the source shows none: an undated web page, a leaflet, a photograph, a manuscript. It signals that the absence was checked rather than overlooked.
It is not a licence to skip searching. Copyright lines, metadata, archived captures, and internal references often supply a date; a bracketed estimate such as [c. 1935?] is preferred to n.d. when there is real evidence for it.
Because undated sources are hard for readers to weigh, most guides pair n.d. with an access date for online material, so the reader knows at least when the text existed in the form quoted.
Common mistake: substituting the year you happened to read the page. That date belongs in the access-date field, never in the publication-year field.
“(Riverside Historical Society, n.d.)”
Keep reading the glossary
The date you actually read an online source, recorded because online sources change.
A formal reference that lets a reader locate the source of a quote.
A citation family that identifies sources in text by author surname and year of publication.
An unnumbered note that credits the origin of a whole chapter, table, epigraph, or image.