Chinese Zodiac
Enter your birth date to find your animal, its element and how it relates to the other eleven signs.
- What it answers
- Your zodiac animal and how it gets on with the others.
- What you need
- Your birth date. The year turns at the start of spring, not on 1 January.
- What you get
- Your animal and element, with its traditional matches and clashes.
By 立春, as in Four Pillars
馬
Horse
- Year pillar
- 庚午 1990
- Element
- Metal
- Polarity
- Yang
Why this animal
Yang at its height: open and strong. The horse runs fast.
Other years of this sign
1966 · 1978 · 2002 · 2014
Traditional relations
- Three Harmonies
- 虎 Tiger狗 Dog
- Six Harmonies
- 羊 Goat
- Clash
- 鼠 Rat
- Harm
- 牛 Ox
Traditional patterns shown for culture, not advice.
Understanding the Chinese zodiac
The Chinese zodiac gives each year one of twelve animals, matched to the twelve Earthly Branches. Each year also has a Heavenly Stem, which gives it an element and a polarity, so the full cycle runs sixty years. The Qing manual Xie Ji Bian Fang Shu traces the animals back at least as far as the Zhou and Han.
See the Yearly Guides for dates, directions and the twelve signs →
How it works
- Decide where the year beginsMost people change sign at the lunar new year. 八字 changes at 立春, around 4 February.
- Find the year pillarThe year gives a stem and a branch from the sixty-year cycle.
- Read the animalThe branch gives the animal. The stem gives the element and polarity.
- Find the relationsFixed patterns among the branches give the signs that harmonise, clash or harm.
How to read it
- Check the dateIf you were born in January or early February, look at both systems.
- Read your signThe large character is your year’s branch.
- Use the relations as a mapThey show traditional patterns, not a verdict on any person.
- Go furtherYour year is one of the eight characters in a Four Pillars chart.
Our method
- Two systems
- We show the sign by 立春 first because our Four Pillars tool uses it. When the two differ you see both.
- Time zone
- 立春 is read on China Standard Time. On that very day the hour decides, and the page tells you so.
- Why these animals
- The short notes come from Li Hai Ji as quoted in vol. 1. The manual doubts other explanations.
- Relations
- The Three Harmonies and Six Harmonies are from vol. 1. The Six Harms are from vol. 6. We left out the Three Punishments.
- Left out
- Personality and yearly fortune lists are later popular writing. We have not found a classic for them, so we do not show them.
Common questions
Why Loong and not Dragon?
The Chinese 龍 is a rain-bringing, lucky creature, quite unlike the fire-breathing dragon of European stories. We write it Loong to keep the two apart. Many English books still call this sign the Dragon, and it is the same sign.
Is my sign different on other websites?
It can be. Sites differ on whether the year starts at the lunar new year or at 立春.
Why is the Goat sometimes a Sheep?
The word 羊 covers goats and sheep. English writers use either.
Does a clash mean we cannot be together?
No. It is a pattern on the calendar and says nothing certain about real people.
Is my date saved?
No. It stays in your browser.
Sources
- Qin Ding Xie Ji Bian Fang Shu, vol. 1 (the twelve branches, Three Harmonies and Six Harmonies), Siku Quanshu text on Chinese Wikisource.
- Qin Ding Xie Ji Bian Fang Shu, vol. 6 (Six Harms).
- Li Hai Ji, as quoted in vol. 1.