Chinese zodiac years, with the dates that matter.

The year in the first column names the Gregorian year in which that lunar year begins. Its animal applies from the listed Lunar New Year through the listed end date, including both days. The end is the day before the next Lunar New Year, usually in the following Gregorian year.

If you were born before the start date in January or February, look at the preceding row instead. A person born on February 9, 2024 is in the Rabbit year that began in 2023; February 10, 2024 begins the Dragon year. The four digits “2024” alone cannot settle both cases.

The animal repeats every twelve years. The element and polarity come from the heavenly-stem cycle; the same animal–element combination returns after sixty years. These are calendar labels and traditional categories, not a personality assessment.

This table follows Lunar New Year, the first day of the first lunar month. It does not change signs on January 1 or on Start of Spring (Lìchūn). Some specialist traditions use that solar-term boundary; compare like with like before calling two answers inconsistent.

The dates are Gregorian civil dates in the Chinese calendar convention used by our engine. There is no birth-time or birthplace calculation here. For a birth near a time-sensitive boundary, a historical record or a different calendrical practice, identify the convention you actually need rather than assuming a year chart resolves it.

We use Goat for 羊, Rat for 鼠 and Rooster for 鸡. Sheep, Ram, Mouse and Cock may appear in other English references; a translation difference does not necessarily mean a different position in the twelve-animal sequence.

The 200 Lunar New Year start dates and corresponding animal labels for 1901–2100 were independently compared with the Hong Kong Observatory’s year-specific text tables on October 19, 2026. Our offline regression fixtures retain the extracted reference dates and file hashes; the expected values are not produced by our calendar engine.

Inclusive end dates are calculated as the next Lunar New Year minus one day. For 1901–2099, the next boundary is also inside that independently compared set. The final end date, January 28, 2101, is calculated from the engine’s 2101 boundary, outside the Observatory index’s 1901–2100 range; it is not presented as an independently checked 2101 date.

The engine is lunar-javascript 1.7.7. Applying a modern computed calendar to older years does not certify the calendar used in every historical jurisdiction. The Observatory also notes that long-range astronomical calculations can differ by a day when an event falls near midnight. For an official or consequential use, consult the responsible authority and its year-specific record.