Enter your birth year to get your Chinese zodiac animal, element and cycle name
The cycle is 60 years, not 12
The twelve animals repeat every 12 years, but the full traditional cycle pairs each animal with one of ten heavenly stems, giving 60 unique combinations before it repeats. That is why a 60th birthday is a milestone across East Asia — it is the year you return to the stem-branch pairing you were born under. Two Ox years 12 years apart carry different elements and are read differently.
Working it out from the year
Divide the year by 12 and take the remainder: 0 Monkey, 1 Rooster, 2 Dog, 3 Pig, 4 Rat, 5 Ox, 6 Tiger, 7 Rabbit, 8 Dragon, 9 Snake, 10 Horse, 11 Goat. So 1997 leaves a remainder of 5 and is an Ox year. The element comes from the last digit — 4 and 5 are Wood, 6 and 7 Fire, 8 and 9 Earth, 0 and 1 Metal, 2 and 3 Water — making 1997 a Fire Ox year.
Born in January or early February?
This is where most online calculators get it wrong for you. The zodiac year does not start on 1 January — it starts at Chinese New Year, which falls between 21 January and 20 February. If you were born in that window, your sign is the previous year's animal. Traditional astrologers use a third boundary, the solar term Lichun around 4 February. This page shows the common quick-reference convention based on the calendar year, so check your birth date against the Lunar New Year if you are near the edge.
2026 is the Fire Horse
2026 is a Bing-Wu year — the Fire Horse, a pairing that comes round once every 60 years, last seen in 1966. Both characters map to the fire element, making it a doubled-fire year. Japan recorded a sharp one-year drop in births in 1966 on the strength of a superstition about Fire Horse women; it is folklore, not a statistical finding.
How to use this page
| 1. Find your sign | Type a birth year from 1900 to 2043 and press Find. You get the animal, the sixty-year cycle name (for example Ding-Chou), the element colour and your age this year, plus a link to that sign's page. |
|---|---|
| 2. This year | The card below shows the current year's cycle name, its colour-animal name (2026 is Bing-Wu, the Red Fire Horse) and element. |
| 3. All 12 signs | The grid from Rat to Pig lists each sign's years between 1972 and 2032 so you can jump straight to yours. |
| 4. Sign pages | Each sign page has a years and ages table for 1900–2043 with the cycle name, the exact Lunar New Year start date for 1980–2030 and your age, five personality keywords with a description, three best-match signs and one clashing sign, a one-line 2026 outlook and a short FAQ. |
Stems, elements and colours
| Jia · Yi (甲 · 乙) | Wood · Green — years ending in 4 or 5 |
|---|---|
| Bing · Ding (丙 · 丁) | Fire · Red — years ending in 6 or 7 |
| Wu · Ji (戊 · 己) | Earth · Yellow — years ending in 8 or 9 |
| Geng · Xin (庚 · 辛) | Metal · White — years ending in 0 or 1 |
| Ren · Gui (壬 · 癸) | Water · Black — years ending in 2 or 3 |
This is where names like Golden Pig, Black Dragon or White Tiger come from. The page turns the stem's element into a colour word, so 1988 shows as Wu-Chen, the Yellow Earth Dragon, 2000 as Geng-Chen, the White Metal Dragon, and 2012 as Ren-Chen, the Black Water Dragon — three Dragon years, three different readings.
Each animal also has a fixed element and polarity
| Rat | Water · Yang |
|---|---|
| Ox | Earth · Yin |
| Tiger | Wood · Yang |
| Rabbit | Wood · Yin |
| Dragon | Earth · Yang |
| Snake | Fire · Yin |
| Horse | Fire · Yang |
| Goat | Earth · Yin |
| Monkey | Metal · Yang |
| Rooster | Metal · Yin |
| Dog | Earth · Yang |
| Pig | Water · Yin |
How matches and clashes are decided
The three best matches on a sign page are the two other members of its harmony triangle plus its secret friend. The triangles are Rat–Dragon–Monkey, Ox–Snake–Rooster, Tiger–Horse–Dog and Rabbit–Goat–Pig. Secret friends come in pairs: Rat–Ox, Tiger–Pig, Rabbit–Dog, Dragon–Rooster, Snake–Monkey and Horse–Goat. The clashing sign is the animal directly opposite on the twelve-year wheel, six places away, giving Rat–Horse, Ox–Goat, Tiger–Monkey, Rabbit–Rooster, Dragon–Dog and Snake–Pig. That is why the 2026 Horse year reads as a clash for the Rat, a harmony year for the Tiger and the Dog, and a secret-friend year for the Goat.
How the age is calculated
Ages in the table and in the finder are simply the current year minus the birth year, assuming your birthday has already passed. Subtract one if it has not. For an exact count in days, or the days until your next birthday, use the Day Counter & Date Calculator.
Is it Goat, Sheep or Ram?
All three are translations of the same sign, 未. Chinese sources usually say Goat, Japanese and Korean usage leans toward Sheep, and Ram appears in older English texts. This page uses Goat throughout; the years and readings are identical whichever word you prefer.
I was born in January. Which sign am I?
By the calendar-year convention this page uses, the sign of the year printed on your birth certificate. By the traditional rule, the zodiac year begins at Lunar New Year, so anyone born before that date belongs to the previous animal. The sign pages list the exact Lunar New Year date for every year from 1980 to 2030 so you can check where your birthday falls.
What sign is a baby born in 2026?
A Horse, specifically the Bing-Wu Red Fire Horse. The stem Bing is Fire and the Horse branch is also Fire and Yang, which is why the year is described as doubled fire. The previous Fire Horse year was 1966 and the next will be 2086.
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