What the Zodiac Animal Calculator (Chinese Zodiac) does
This calculator gives your Chinese zodiac animal, element and yin or yang from your full date of birth, using the actual Lunar New Year date for that year, so a January or early-February birthday is placed in the right animal year. It also shows the sexagenary name of the year (such as Bing-wu), your animal's traditional best and worst matches, and every year of your animal from 1901 to 2100.
The Chinese zodiac year does not start on 1 January. It starts at Lunar New Year, which moves between 21 January and 20 February, so roughly one person in twelve is given the wrong animal by a simple year lookup. The New Year dates here come from the Hong Kong Observatory's published calendar tables for 1901 to 2100, and each date is cross-checked in the tests against a new moon computed independently.
How to use it
- Enter your birth date.
- Leave "Year starts at" on Lunar New Year for the everyday Chinese zodiac. Choose Li Chun if you follow Four Pillars (BaZi) astrology, which starts the year at the solar term Spring Commences, around 4 February.
- Read the headline: element and animal, with yin or yang and the year's name in the 60-year cycle.
- Check the panel under it. If you were born before that year's New Year, it says so and gives the date the previous year began.
- Optionally pick another animal to see the traditional relation between the two, and use the tables for all twelve pairings and every year of your animal.
Reading the results
The animal comes from the earthly branch of the year and repeats every 12 years. The element comes from the heavenly stem and changes every two years, in the order Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water; yang and yin alternate each year. Together they make a 60-year cycle: 2026 is Bing-wu, the Yang Fire Horse.
Compatibility follows the classical tables: the Three Harmonies (animals four years apart, such as Rat, Dragon and Monkey) and the Six Harmonies (pairs such as Rat and Ox) are good matches; the Six Clashes (animals six years apart) and the Six Harms are difficult.
If the two conventions disagree for your date, you were born between Li Chun and Lunar New Year (or the other way round). Both are legitimate; they answer for different traditions.
This tool differs from the Zodiac Sign Finder, which names a Chinese animal from the birth year alone. Here the full date is checked against that year's New Year, and the element, polarity and compatibility tables are added.
Worked example: a birthday on 20 January 1990
1990 is the year of the Horse, so a year lookup says Horse. But Lunar New Year 1990 was on 27 January (Hong Kong Observatory table), and 20 January is a week before it.
So the birth belongs to the lunar year that began on 6 February 1989. For 1989: (1989 - 4) mod 12 = 5, the sixth branch, Snake; (1989 - 4) mod 10 = 5, the stem Ji, which is yin Earth. The answer is the Yin Earth Snake, Ji-si, year 6 of the 60-year cycle.
The Snake's traditional best matches are the Ox and Rooster (Three Harmonies) and the Monkey (Six Harmonies); its clash is the Pig.
Formulas and scoring rules
- Lunar year
lunar year = Gregorian year - 1 if the date is before that year's Lunar New Year, else the Gregorian yearLunar New Year dates 1901-2100 from the Hong Kong Observatory, civil dates in China's calendar time.- Animal
branch = (lunar year - 4) mod 12; 0 = Rat, 1 = Ox ... 11 = Pig- Element and polarity
stem = (lunar year - 4) mod 10; element = [Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water][floor(stem / 2)]; yang if stem is even1984 is Jia-zi, the first year of the current 60-year cycle.- Cycle year
cycle year = (lunar year - 4) mod 60 + 1
How the New Year date is decided
Chinese New Year is the day of the second new moon after the winter solstice in most years (the third in years with a leap month, such as 2034, after the leap eleventh month of 2033), reckoned in China Standard Time. That is why it falls on a different Gregorian date each year. The table this tool uses is the published one, and the tests confirm that every date in it is a day on which the Moon and Sun were in conjunction in Chinese calendar time, computed separately with the Meeus lunar theory.
Limitations: what the result does not prove
- The table runs from Lunar New Year 1901 (19 February) to the end of 2100; earlier or later dates are refused rather than guessed.
- The New Year dates are Chinese civil dates. A birth late in the evening in the Americas on the day before New Year may already be New Year's Day in China; for a birth that close, compare the local time with China's.
- Vietnamese, Korean and Tibetan calendars sometimes differ from the Chinese one by a day, and the Vietnamese zodiac has the Cat instead of the Rabbit.
- Animal traits and compatibility are cultural tradition, not science, and are shown as such.
Privacy: where your data goes
Everything you paste, type or drop is processed in this browser tab. It is not uploaded, logged, stored or sent to analytics. Session recording and tag-manager scripts are switched off on this page.
Standards and sources
- Hong Kong Observatory - Gregorian-Lunar Calendar Conversion Tables
- Hong Kong Observatory - The 24 Solar Terms
- Encyclopaedia Britannica - Chinese calendar
Frequently asked questions
What Chinese zodiac am I if I was born in January or February?
It depends on the Lunar New Year date that year. If you were born before it, you belong to the previous year's animal. Enter your full birth date and the tool checks it against the actual New Year date for that year.
What is my Chinese zodiac element?
It comes from the heavenly stem of your lunar year: years ending in 4 or 5 are Wood, 6 or 7 Fire, 8 or 9 Earth, 0 or 1 Metal, and 2 or 3 Water - after adjusting the year for a birthday before Lunar New Year. The tool does this for you.
Which Chinese zodiac animals are compatible?
Tradition counts the Three Harmonies - Rat, Dragon, Monkey; Ox, Snake, Rooster; Tiger, Horse, Dog; Rabbit, Goat, Pig - and the Six Harmonies pairs as good matches, and the animals six years apart as clashes. The compatibility table shows all twelve for your animal.
What is the Chinese zodiac for 2026?
2026 is the year of the Yang Fire Horse (Bing-wu), starting on 17 February 2026. Anyone born from 29 January 2025 to 16 February 2026 is a Wood Snake.
Why do some sites say the year starts on 4 February?
Four Pillars (BaZi) astrology starts the year at Li Chun, the solar term when the Sun reaches 315 degrees, around 4 February. Popular zodiac signs use Lunar New Year. Both conventions are available here.
What does yin or yang mean in the Chinese zodiac?
Each year alternates between yang (active) and yin (receptive) with the heavenly stems. Yang years end in an even digit and yin years in an odd one; the animal also has a fixed polarity, and the two always agree.
Last reviewed by the A2Z.Tools team against the sources listed above.
