Zodiac years reference: 1948-2039 stem-branch names and New Year dates.

How to look it up: find your lunar year first

The zodiac follows lunar years, and a lunar year starts at Spring Festival. So step one is checking whether the birthday falls before New Year: someone born on 5 February 2024 is, on the lunar calendar, still in the guimao Rabbit year, because Spring Festival came on 10 February. Find the most recent Spring Festival before the birthday in the table - that row is your lunar year and animal. For the four pillars down to the hour, use the sexagenary tool; to compare the New Year and Lichun conventions, use the zodiac finder.

The table, 1948-2039

生肖与干支均按农历年口径列出（春节换年）。立春口径的差异只影响出生在春节与立春之间约十来天的人群；两个口径都是沿用至今的传统规则，本表不做取舍。生肖仅是纪年纪日的文化符号，本页不含任何性格或吉凶推断。Zodiac and stem-branch names follow the lunar-year convention (year changes at Spring Festival). The Lichun convention differs only for the roughly ten days between the two dates; both are long-standing traditional rules and this table takes no side. The zodiac is a cultural numbering device - this page contains no personality or fortune claims.

The cycles behind stems, branches and animals

Ten stems and twelve branches pair up with a least common multiple of 60, so stem-branch years repeat every sixty years - the sexagenary cycle. The twelve animals map one-to-one onto the twelve branches and repeat every twelve years. Two lunar years with the same animal are always 12 apart; the same stem-branch name recurs only every 60 - 1984 and 2044 are both jiazi years. So the table needs no memorising: from any base year add or subtract 12 for the animal, 60 for the full name.

Why the New Year date moves every year

Chinese New Year is the 1st of lunar month 1, and lunar months follow the moon: twelve of them total about 354 days, eleven short of a Gregorian year; years with a leap month run about 384 days. New Year therefore swings between 21 January and 20 February, and the year after a leap month comes noticeably later. In the table, New Year 2033 falls on 31 January while 2034 falls on 19 February - the leap months around 2033 explain the jump. For the full mechanism, see the lunar calendar basics guide.

Related references and tools

要查任意日期的农历与干支，用 农历万年历；要按生日对照两种生肖口径，用 生肖查询；要看十二生肖之间的六类关系，用 生肖关系对照表；要查农历节日的公历日期，用 农历节日速查表。

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