Discover your Chinese zodiac animal and its element from your birth year, plus what 2026 — the year ahead — holds for your sign in love, work and fortune.
The Chinese zodiac is not part of Jyotish. It runs on a twelve-year animal cycle crossed with five elements, giving a sixty-year round, and it is anchored to the Chinese lunisolar new year rather than to the sidereal zodiac Vedic astrology uses. We include it because people look for it and the calculation is straightforward — not because it confirms anything in your kundli. Two separate systems giving separate answers is the honest description.
The Chinese year begins at the lunar new year in late January or February, not on 1 January. Anyone born in the first weeks of a Gregorian year belongs to the previous animal, which is the single most common mistake in these tables. This calculator uses the lunisolar boundary.
No. They come from unrelated systems with different cycles and different starting points, and there is no correspondence to convert between them.
Probably the previous year's, since the Chinese year starts at the lunar new year rather than on 1 January. The calculator handles that boundary for you.