Sign + element
Your Chinese zodiac sign, and the element that comes with it
A birth date is enough to read the year pillar: which animal, which stem, and therefore which fixed element. It is not enough to read a Day Master — that takes a full chart.
Date only. No hour, no place — the year pillar does not need them.
Two animals, side by side
Pick a second sign. You get the relation the tradition names between the two branches — a keyword, not a score.
Liu He, Liu Chong and San He are the three relations a reader is most likely to have met: a combination, a clash across the compass, and the three-branch triangle. They are keywords about two branches, not a judgement about two people.
Read your sign above first — the pair needs one sign to compare from.
Two signs only. We do not rate relationships, print a percentage, or call anything compatible or incompatible.
How the sign is worked out
No lookup table is involved. The date is turned into a year-pillar year at the Lichun boundary, and that year is placed in a sixty-year cycle that repeats without gaps.
- 1984 is Jia Zi — the first year of the cycle, and the anchor every other year is counted from.
- The position in the cycle gives two characters: a stem (ten, repeating) and a branch (twelve, repeating). The branch is the animal.
- The stem carries one of the five elements. That is why a year is called a Fire Horse rather than just a Horse.
- The year changes at Lichun, which falls on 3, 4 or 5 February — not at midnight on January 1.
The twelve signs
Each sign has a page of its own: the years it covers, its element, and what the branch is read for.
Questions about the zodiac calculator
Does the Chinese zodiac start on January 1?
No. The year pillar turns over at Lichun, which falls on 3, 4 or 5 February. Someone born on 20 January is still the previous year’s animal, and this page says so instead of hiding it.
Why does another calculator give me a different sign?
Most calculators switch at Lunar New Year. Between Lichun and Lunar New Year — a window of up to three weeks — the two methods disagree. This page follows the year pillar, because that is the boundary the rest of a Bazi chart uses.
Is this the same as my Sun sign?
No. The Chinese zodiac marks a year; a Sun sign marks a month. They are two different systems, not two translations of one.
What is the fixed element?
Every year has a stem as well as a branch. The stem carries one of the five elements, and that is what “Fire Horse” or “Water Rat” names. The animal on its own is half of the year pillar.
Can you tell my fortune from this?
No. An animal and an element are two characters out of eight, and we do not forecast events. For anything deeper, read a chart and look at what each line is built on.