Enter your birth date to discover your Chinese zodiac animal, element and lucky traits. ๐
Birth year โ animal sign
The Chinese year begins in late Jan/Feb, so births early in the year are handled automatically.
The Chinese zodiac (Shฤngxiร o) is a 12-year cycle, with each year represented by an animal: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig. Your animal is set by your birth year โ but because the Chinese New Year falls in late January or February, anyone born in those early weeks belongs to the previous year's animal. This calculator accounts for that automatically.
Each animal pairs with one of five elements (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water) on a 60-year cycle, giving combinations like "Water Tiger" or "Metal Ox." The zodiac is a beloved part of Lunar New Year celebrations and a fun way to explore personality and compatibility.
The Chinese zodiac assigns one of twelve animals to each year in a repeating cycle, so the animal is simply the birth year modulo 12. The complication is that the Chinese New Year falls between 21 January and 20 February depending on the lunisolar calendar, so anyone born in January or early February belongs to the previous year's animal. A fuller system combines the twelve animals with five elements โ wood, fire, earth, metal, water โ producing a 60-year sexagenary cycle in which a specific animal-element combination recurs only once a lifetime.
Animal index = (birth year โ 4) mod 120 Rat ยท 1 Ox ยท 2 Tiger ยท 3 Rabbit ยท 4 Dragon ยท 5 Snake6 Horse ยท 7 Goat ยท 8 Monkey ยท 9 Rooster ยท 10 Dog ยท 11 PigElement cycle: (year โ 4) mod 10, paired across 60 yearswhere:
Assumptions: For cultural interest and entertainment. The New Year adjustment is the substantive calculation detail โ using the Gregorian year alone misclassifies anyone born in the first six weeks of the year.
Apply the modulo, then correct for a birth before the lunar New Year.
ResultWood Pig โ not Rat, because the birth precedes the lunar New Year
The six-week window at the start of each Gregorian year is where almost all errors occur, and it changes the animal entirely rather than slightly. Anyone born in January or early February should check the lunar New Year date for their specific birth year.