Find out your Chinese New Year animal!

This webpage can be used to find out what animal you are in the ancient Chinese calendar.

In the Chinese Calendar, each year is connected with a particular animal. There are twelve animals in all and so the cycle is repeated every twelve years. The animals are: rat, ox, tiger, hare/rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep/ram, monkey, rooster, dog and pig/boar.

To find out what animal your birthday fell on, select the date of your birthday using the pull-down menus and then click on the "What animal am I... ?" button. You will then see what Year you were born in, when the Chinese New Year was on that year and your Chinese animal! Read on to find out why your animal may be different from your Year animal...

More about the Chinese New Year

The Chinese New Year is not based on the same calendar that is commonly used today (the Gregorian Calendar) and so it does not fall on January 1st like New Years Day in Western countries.

The Chinese, being great astronomers, based their year on the cycles of the sun and moon. This is called a lunisolar calendar. The New Year for them starts on the second New Moon after the winter solstice. A New Moon is a night when the moon looks to be completely black and so you can't see it in the sky. It is black because the moon is between the sun and the Earth and so the light from the sun is shining on the side that is facing away from us. A solstice is a day when the sun is at its furthest north or south in the sky. The soltices are the longest and shortest days in the year. The winter solstice happens about December 22nd and the cycle of the moon is about 28 days (almost a month). That is why the Chinese New Year falls around February time.

Fascinating fact: the Chinese were such good astronomers that they worked out that a year is 365 days over 2000 years ago! In fact they were so good that they measured the length of a year to be almost the same as the highly accurate measurement we have today.

In Chinese Astrology, each person has a corresponding animal that is related to the animal of the year they were born. However, it is not as simple as just using the year you were born in! The animal you are changes BEFORE the New Year, usually on February 4th. This is when the animal changes in the year. So, in 2007 the New Year starts on 18th February, but the animal changes to Pig on 4th February. So if you were born on 10th February, your animal would be a pig.

In China, the New Year is a time of celebration and for the family. It is celebrated by people of Chinese descent all over the world.