The Chinese lunar calendar is a lunisolar system that combines lunar months starting on each new moon with a framework of 24 solar terms that track the sun’s position across the year. The calendar has been in continuous use for more than two thousand years and still governs the dates of Chinese New Year, the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Dragon Boat Festival, and the zodiac animal cycle that assigns one of twelve animals to each year.
Modern China uses the Gregorian calendar for government, business, and education, but the traditional lunisolar calendar runs alongside it on printed calendars, smartphone apps, and in the planning of weddings, funerals, and business openings, where choosing an auspicious date according to the traditional system remains common practice. This article explains how the calendar works, covers the zodiac animals and the sexagenary cycle, lists the 24 solar terms, and traces the relationship between the traditional and Gregorian systems.
How the Chinese Lunisolar Calendar Works
The Chinese calendar is not a pure lunar calendar. A pure lunar calendar, such as the Islamic Hijri calendar, runs twelve lunar months of 29 or 30 days each and drifts roughly eleven days per year against the solar seasons. The Chinese system avoids this drift by inserting a leap month, called run yue, approximately every three years to keep the calendar roughly aligned with the solar year and the agricultural seasons.
Each month begins on the day of the astronomical new moon, called shuori. Months alternate between 29 and 30 days, giving a standard twelve-month lunar year of 353 to 355 days. The leap month is inserted according to a rule based on the 24 solar terms: the leap month is the first month that does not contain a major solar term, called zhongqi. This rule keeps the winter solstice anchored in the eleventh month and the spring equinox close to the second month.
The result is a calendar that tracks both the moon’s phases (useful for tidal, fishing, and agricultural timing) and the sun’s seasonal position (useful for planting, harvest, and festival scheduling). The dual nature of the system is why astronomers and historians call it lunisolar rather than lunar alone.
The 12 Zodiac Animals
The Chinese zodiac assigns one of twelve animals to each year in a repeating cycle. The animals and their order are:
- Rat (shu)
- Ox (niu)
- Tiger (hu)
- Rabbit (tu)
- Dragon (long)
- Snake (she)
- Horse (ma)
- Goat (yang)
- Monkey (hou)
- Rooster (ji)
- Dog (gou)
- Pig (zhu)
A person’s birth year determines their zodiac animal, and Chinese folk tradition assigns personality traits, compatibility patterns, and fortune predictions to each sign. The zodiac year begins on Chinese New Year rather than on 1 January, so a person born in January or early February needs to check whether their birth date fell before or after that year’s Chinese New Year to identify their correct zodiac animal.
The zodiac cycle interacts with the five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, water) to produce a 60-year super-cycle in which each animal-element combination appears once. The year 2024, for example, was a Year of the Wood Dragon, a combination that recurs every 60 years.
The Sexagenary Cycle: Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches
The 60-year cycle at the heart of traditional Chinese timekeeping is built from the combination of ten Heavenly Stems, called tiangan, and twelve Earthly Branches, called dizhi. The ten stems and twelve branches pair off in sequence to produce 60 distinct combinations before the cycle repeats.
The ten Heavenly Stems are:
- Jia, Yi (wood pair)
- Bing, Ding (fire pair)
- Wu, Ji (earth pair)
- Geng, Xin (metal pair)
- Ren, Gui (water pair)
The twelve Earthly Branches correspond to the twelve zodiac animals (zi = Rat, chou = Ox, yin = Tiger, and so on). Traditional Chinese date notation uses the stem-branch pair to identify years, months, days, and two-hour periods. The sexagenary cycle was used for dating purposes in the oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang dynasty, making it one of the oldest continuous numbering systems in the world. The broader development of Chinese writing and record-keeping grew alongside this calendrical framework.
The 24 Solar Terms
The 24 solar terms, called jieqi, divide the solar year into segments of roughly 15 days each and mark the seasonal transitions that govern Chinese agriculture. The terms track the sun’s ecliptic longitude rather than the moon’s phases, which is the solar component of the lunisolar system.
The 24 terms run as follows, starting from the beginning of spring:
- Spring: Start of Spring (lichun), Rain Water (yushui), Awakening of Insects (jingzhe), Spring Equinox (chunfen), Pure Brightness (qingming), Grain Rain (guyu)
- Summer: Start of Summer (lixia), Grain Buds (xiaoman), Grain in Ear (mangzhong), Summer Solstice (xiazhi), Minor Heat (xiaoshu), Major Heat (dashu)
- Autumn: Start of Autumn (liqiu), End of Heat (chushu), White Dew (bailu), Autumnal Equinox (qiufen), Cold Dew (hanlu), Frost’s Descent (shuangjing)
- Winter: Start of Winter (lidong), Minor Snow (xiaoxue), Major Snow (daxue), Winter Solstice (dongzhi), Minor Cold (xiaohan), Major Cold (dahan)
UNESCO inscribed the 24 solar terms on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2016, recognising the system as a living cultural practice that continues to shape agricultural and festival timing across China and the Chinese diaspora.
Festivals Governed by the Lunar Calendar
The major traditional Chinese festivals are dated by the lunisolar calendar rather than the Gregorian calendar, which is why their Gregorian dates shift each year. The key festival dates are:
- Chinese New Year (Spring Festival): 1st day of the 1st lunar month, falling between 21 January and 20 February on the Gregorian calendar
- Lantern Festival: 15th day of the 1st lunar month
- Qingming Festival (Tomb Sweeping): around 4 or 5 April, tied to the Pure Brightness solar term
- Dragon Boat Festival (Duanwu): 5th day of the 5th lunar month
- Mid-Autumn Festival: 15th day of the 8th lunar month
- Double Ninth Festival (Chongyang): 9th day of the 9th lunar month
Wedding planners, business owners, and families across China also consult the traditional calendar to select auspicious dates for major events, drawing on the stem-branch day cycle and the solar terms to avoid dates considered unlucky.
Gregorian Adoption and Modern Dual Use
The Republic of China officially adopted the Gregorian calendar on 1 January 1912, and the People’s Republic of China confirmed its use for government and business after 1949. Japan had switched to the Gregorian calendar in 1873, and Korea followed at various points in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The traditional lunisolar calendar did not disappear. Printed calendars and phone apps in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore display both Gregorian and traditional dates side by side. The traditional dates govern the timing of Chinese New Year holidays, the Mid-Autumn Festival public holiday, and the Qingming and Duanwu public holidays recognised by the PRC government.
The Hong Kong Observatory and the Purple Mountain Observatory in Nanjing publish the annual traditional calendar with the Gregorian equivalents, the zodiac designation for the year, and the 24 solar term dates. These published calendars are the authoritative reference for festival dates across the Chinese-speaking world.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Chinese lunar calendar?
The Chinese lunar calendar is a lunisolar system that combines lunar months starting on each new moon with 24 solar terms that track the sun’s seasonal position. It has been in continuous use for more than two thousand years and governs the dates of Chinese New Year, the Mid-Autumn Festival, and the zodiac animal cycle.
What year is it in the Chinese calendar?
The Chinese calendar counts years in a repeating 60-year sexagenary cycle rather than in a continuous linear count like the Gregorian calendar. Each year is identified by its zodiac animal and element combination. Some popular sources assign a continuous year count starting from the legendary Yellow Emperor, but this numbering is not used in official Chinese government documents.
How is Chinese New Year’s date determined?
Chinese New Year falls on the first day of the first month of the lunisolar calendar, which corresponds to the second new moon after the winter solstice. This places it between 21 January and 20 February on the Gregorian calendar. The exact date shifts each year because the lunar months do not align with Gregorian months.
What are the 12 Chinese zodiac animals?
The twelve animals in order are Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig. The cycle repeats every twelve years, and each animal combines with one of five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, water) to produce a 60-year super-cycle.
Is the Chinese calendar still used today?
Modern China uses the Gregorian calendar for government, business, and education. The traditional lunisolar calendar runs alongside it and governs festival dates, zodiac designations, and the selection of auspicious dates for weddings, funerals, and business openings. Printed calendars and phone apps across the Chinese-speaking world display both systems side by side.
Sources and Further Reading
- Hong Kong Observatory, traditional Chinese calendar and solar terms reference, hko.gov.hk
- Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, annual lunisolar calendar publication, pmo.ac.cn
- UNESCO, The Twenty-Four Solar Terms, Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, 2016, ich.unesco.org
- Helmer Aslaksen, The Mathematics of the Chinese Calendar, National University of Singapore, published online lecture notes
