Chinese Calendar Converter
Convert any Gregorian date to the Chinese lunisolar calendar and see the zodiac animal for that year.
Calculator
This converter runs one direction only — Gregorian → Chinese. The Chinese year is a cyclic stem-branch name with no numeric year, so a numeric Chinese date cannot be reversed unambiguously by the engine.
About this calculator
This converter turns any Gregorian (Western) date into its place on the traditional Chinese calendar and tells you the Chinese zodiac animal for that year. The Chinese calendar is lunisolar: each month begins on a new moon, so a lunar month runs 29 or 30 days, and twelve of them fall about eleven days short of the solar year. To catch up, a thirteenth "leap month" is inserted roughly every third year, keeping the months in step with the seasons and the 24 solar terms. Unlike the Western calendar, the Chinese year is not a plain number — it is named by the 60-year sexagenary cycle (ten Heavenly Stems paired with twelve Earthly Branches) and by one of the twelve zodiac animals: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig. Enter a date — a birthday, an anniversary, or today — and read back the lunar month and day, whether it is a leap month, the stem-branch year name, and the zodiac animal. By default it shows today’s date, so it doubles as a "what is the Chinese date today" and "what is my Chinese zodiac" lookup.
How to read your results
The headline shows the Chinese zodiac animal and the lunar date for the Gregorian date you entered: the lunar month number (1–12), the day of that month, and the stem-branch name of the year written in both pinyin (for example "Jiǎ-Chén") and Chinese characters (甲辰). If the date lands in an inserted leap month, the result says so — a leap month repeats the previous month’s number (a "leap 4th month" follows the ordinary 4th month) rather than adding a new name. The day of the week is the same real weekday in both calendars, because both describe the same 24-hour civil day. One thing to watch at the turn of the year: the zodiac animal does not change on 1 January. It changes on Chinese New Year — the first day of the first lunar month — which falls between 21 January and 20 February. A January birthday can therefore belong to the previous animal year. The tool reports the year by its Gregorian-equivalent ("related") year so you always know which solar year the Chinese year sits in.
How it's calculated
Every conversion pivots on the Julian Day Number (JDN), a continuous count of days independent of any calendar. The Gregorian input date is reduced to its JDN with the standard civil-date formula, and that JDN is then read out in the Chinese calendar through the ICU lunisolar data exposed by Intl.DateTimeFormat (the "chinese" calendar). ICU supplies the lunar month (with a "bis" marker for an inserted leap month, which this tool surfaces as isLeapMonth), the day of that month, and a "related" Gregorian year for the Chinese year. The sexagenary year name and the zodiac animal are derived arithmetically from that related year, anchored on 4 CE = jiǎ-zǐ (甲子, position 1 of the cycle, the Year of the Rat): the Heavenly Stem index is (year − 4) mod 10, the Earthly Branch (and zodiac) index is (year − 4) mod 12, and the position in the 60-year cycle is (year − 4) mod 60 + 1. This derivation was validated for 1950–2050 against the year-name ICU exposes directly. Because the Chinese year carries no numeric form in Intl, the conversion is one-directional (Gregorian → Chinese) by construction. "Today" is computed at local civil midnight in your time zone after the page loads, so the default date is correct wherever you are without baking a build-time date into the page.
Worked example
Convert 10 February 2024 (Gregorian) to the Chinese calendar.
10 February 2024 is Chinese New Year — the 1st day of the 1st lunar month — and it opens the jiǎ-chén (甲辰) year, the Year of the Dragon. Step back a single day to 9 February 2024 and you are still in the old year: the 30th day of the 12th lunar month of the guǐ-mǎo (癸卯) Year of the Rabbit. That one-day jump from Rabbit to Dragon is the new-year boundary in action. For contrast, 1 January 2000 converts to the 25th day of the 11th lunar month of the jǐ-mǎo (己卯) Year of the Rabbit: because Chinese New Year 2000 did not arrive until 5 February, the first day of 2000 still belonged to the previous Rabbit year, not to the Dragon.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Chinese zodiac and the sexagenary (stem-branch) cycle?
Each Chinese year is named by an animal from a repeating cycle of twelve — Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig — drawn from the twelve "Earthly Branches". The animal is combined with one of ten "Heavenly Stems", and because 10 and 12 share a common factor the two cycles realign only every 60 years. That 60-year sexagenary cycle gives each year a two-part name such as jiǎ-chén (甲辰); 2024 was a Dragon year, and the next Dragon year is 2036.
When is Chinese New Year and why does its date move every year?
Chinese New Year is the first day of the first lunar month, which begins on the second new moon after the winter solstice. Because the lunar calendar drifts against the solar (Gregorian) year, the date slides around: it can fall anywhere from 21 January to 20 February. In 2024 it was 10 February, in 2025 it was 29 January. The zodiac animal changes on this day, not on 1 January — so a date in late January or early February may still belong to the previous animal year.
What is a leap month in the Chinese calendar?
Twelve lunar months total about 354 days, roughly eleven days shy of the 365-day solar year. To stop the months from drifting out of the seasons, an extra month — a leap month — is inserted about every third year (seven times in 19 years). A leap month does not get a new name; it repeats the number of the month it follows, so you will see, for example, a "leap 2nd month" right after the ordinary 2nd month. This converter flags when your date lands in one. 22 March 2023, for instance, falls in the leap 2nd month of the Rabbit year.
Why does this tool only convert Gregorian → Chinese, and not the other way?
The Chinese calendar is resolved here through the system’s internationalization data (Intl), which reports the year as a cyclic stem-branch name — like "jiǎ-chén" — with no numeric year part at all. A plain "year/month/day" Chinese date therefore cannot be addressed unambiguously: the same lunar month-and-day recurs in every 60-year cycle and leap months reuse month numbers, so the engine has no reliable way to invert it back to a single Gregorian day. For that reason the converter runs one direction only, from a Gregorian date to its Chinese equivalent. To go the other way, look the date up in a published table such as the Hong Kong Observatory conversion table.
Sources
Reviewed by the YouCalc Team · Last reviewed
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