About 12 Chinese Zodiac Signs

It answers three questions precisely. Which Chinese zodiac animal a birth date belongs to, using the sign calculator. Which animal governs a given year. And when a person's own animal year returns, through the ben ming nian tracker.

Around those tools sit twelve sign guides and a set of reference guides covering how the cycle is built and why Chinese New Year sets the year boundary.

A Chinese zodiac year begins at Chinese New Year, not on 1 January. That boundary moves between 21 January and 20 February, so treating the Gregorian year as the zodiac year can give the wrong animal for January and early-February births. Those dates must be checked against the exact New Year boundary.

The site stays close to the twelve animal signs: their calendar boundaries, recurring stem-and-branch names, traditional character portraits, compatibility groupings, legends, and customs. The pair-by-pair compatibility finder follows the traditional trines, secret friends, clashes, and harms used throughout the sign guides.

Full lunar-date conversion and daily almanac practice are broader subjects with their own calendars and conventions, so they sit outside this focused reference.