Chinese Zodiac and Western Zodiac Combined: How to Read Both

How do you read your sun sign and your Chinese zodiac together?

Read them as two layers. Your Chinese year animal describes the year you were born, and your Western sun sign describes the time of year, so the two answer different questions. The closer Chinese match for a sun sign is your month animal, and here the calendars share a link few people know: every sun sign begins on a Chinese solar term, so each one overlaps two month animals.

For the wider picture of how the two traditions differ, see our complete comparison of Chinese and Western astrology.

Two layers: the year you were born and the time of year

Your Western sun sign comes from the sun's position on your birthday. The tropical zodiac most Americans use splits the sun's yearly path into twelve slices of 30 degrees, starting at the March equinox, and the sun crosses about one slice a month. Everyone born between about March 21 and April 19 is an Aries, whatever the year. Western astrologers read it as your core self and your basic drives.

Your Chinese year animal runs on a different clock. The twelve animals, from the Rat to the Pig, each hold a whole year in turn, so everyone born in the same Chinese year shares one, whatever the month. Tradition reads it as your temperament and the way you tend to meet the world. In a full Chinese birth chart the year is also the outermost layer, tied to family roots and early life.

So a "Leo Dragon" carries two coordinates: a Dragon year and a birthday between late July and late August. Many books and websites list 144 blends like this, one for each sign and animal. The blend is modern. Classical Chinese astrology does not read a year animal against a Western sun sign, and a blended type treats two different layers as one.

The solar terms: where the two calendars line up

The Chinese calendar follows the sun as well as the moon. It divides the sun's year into 24 solar terms, spaced 15 degrees apart along the sun's path. They alternate between two kinds. Twelve section terms, called jie, fall around the 4th to the 8th of each Western month. Twelve middle terms, called zhong qi, fall around the 18th to the 23rd.

The two kinds do different jobs. The month animal changes at the section terms: the Tiger month starts at the Start of Spring, about February 4, the Rabbit month at Awakening of Insects, about March 5, and so on. The Western signs change at the middle terms. The Spring Equinox is 0 degrees in both systems and the first day of Aries. Grain Rain, 30 degrees on, is the first day of Taurus, and the pattern holds for all twelve signs.

Why the two week gap? In the Western calendar, spring begins at the equinox. In the Chinese calendar it begins at the Start of Spring in early February, which puts the equinox in the middle of the season. Every Chinese solar month is built this way, with its middle term at the center, and a Western sign starts right at that middle term. The offset is a steady 15 degrees, half a sign.

So every sun sign spends its first half in one month animal and its second half in the next. Our guide to the 24 solar terms lists all of them with their dates and meanings.

Every sun sign and its two month animals

The dates are typical ones, and each switch can move by a day depending on the year and the time zone. If you were born within a day of a month animal switch, the button at the end of this article will show your month animal. On the switch day itself, your birth time decides it.

• Aries, March 21 to April 19: starts at Spring Equinox (Chunfen). Rabbit month from March 21 to April 3, then Dragon month from April 4 to 19.
• Taurus, April 20 to May 20: starts at Grain Rain (Guyu). Dragon month from April 20 to May 4, then Snake month from May 5 to 20.
• Gemini, May 21 to June 20: starts at Lesser Fullness (Xiaoman). Snake month from May 21 to June 4, then Horse month from June 5 to 20.
• Cancer, June 21 to July 22: starts at Summer Solstice (Xiazhi). Horse month from June 21 to July 6, then Goat month from July 7 to 22.
• Leo, July 23 to August 22: starts at Greater Heat (Dashu). Goat month from July 23 to August 6, then Monkey month from August 7 to 22.
• Virgo, August 23 to September 22: starts at End of Heat (Chushu). Monkey month from August 23 to September 6, then Rooster month from September 7 to 22.
• Libra, September 23 to October 22: starts at Autumn Equinox (Qiufen). Rooster month from September 23 to October 7, then Dog month from October 8 to 22.
• Scorpio, October 23 to November 21: starts at Frost Descent (Shuangjiang). Dog month from October 23 to November 6, then Pig month from November 7 to 21.
• Sagittarius, November 22 to December 21: starts at Lesser Snow (Xiaoxue). Pig month from November 22 to December 6, then Rat month from December 7 to 21.
• Capricorn, December 22 to January 19: starts at Winter Solstice (Dongzhi). Rat month from December 22 to January 4, then Ox month from January 5 to 19.
• Aquarius, January 20 to February 18: starts at Greater Cold (Dahan). Ox month from January 20 to February 3, then Tiger month from February 4 to 18.
• Pisces, February 19 to March 20: starts at Rain Water (Yushui). Tiger month from February 19 to March 4, then Rabbit month from March 5 to 20.

One note for Aquarius. The Tiger month begins at the Start of Spring, the same moment a Chinese chart starts the new year animal. So an Aquarius born after about February 4 has the new year animal in a chart, even if Chinese New Year, which falls between January 21 and February 20, has not come yet. Anyone born in January belongs to the year before in a chart, and usually by the calendar too. Our Chinese zodiac years chart gives the Chinese New Year date of every year.

What the month animal adds to a sun sign

A Chinese birth chart (the Energy Chart on our site, also called BaZi or Four Pillars) has four pillars, one each for the year, month, day and hour of birth, and each pairs a stem, which carries an element, with an animal. The month pillar describes the season you were born into. Tradition also ties it to your parents, your upbringing and your working life.

The month animals carry the elements of their seasons. Tiger and Rabbit months are Wood, for spring. Snake and Horse months are Fire, for summer. Monkey and Rooster months are Metal, for autumn, and Pig and Rat months are Water, for winter. Ox, Dragon, Goat and Dog months are Earth, the turn from one season to the next. The four Western elements (Fire, Earth, Air and Water) follow the order of the signs instead of the seasons, so the two lists do not line up: Aries, a Fire sign, spans a Wood month and an Earth month.

The month animal also tells apart two people with the same sun sign. An Aries born on March 25 falls in the Rabbit month, the middle of spring. An Aries born on April 15 falls in the Dragon month, the end of it. In the same way, two people with the same year animal can be as far apart as a Capricorn and a Cancer.

Example one: born April 12, 1990

• Sun sign: in 1990 the sun reached the Spring Equinox on March 20 and Grain Rain on April 20, so April 12 falls in Aries.
• Year animal: 1990 is a Horse year, the Metal Horse. The element in a year name comes from that year's stem, and the Horse keeps its own element, Fire. April is far from the change of year, so a chart and the festival calendar agree.
• Month animal: Clear and Bright, the section term that opens the Dragon month, arrived on the evening of April 4, 1990, US Eastern time. So April 12 sits in the Dragon month, the last month of spring.

Read the layers from wide to narrow. The Horse is shared with everyone born in that Chinese year. Aries narrows it to one month, and the Dragon month narrows it to the second half of Aries. Tradition describes the Horse as lively and independent, and Western astrology describes Aries as direct and quick to start things. A friend born on March 28, 1990 shares the Horse and the Aries sun but has the Rabbit month, a Wood month, where this person has the Dragon, an Earth month.

Example two: born January 29, 1985

• Sun sign: the sun reached Greater Cold on the evening of January 19, 1985, US Eastern time, so January 29 falls in Aquarius.
• Year animal: most tables list 1985 as an Ox year, but the Ox year began at the Start of Spring in early February, or at Chinese New Year on February 20 by the festival calendar. January 29 comes before both, so this person is a Rat, from the Wood Rat year that began in 1984.
• Month animal: Lesser Cold opened the Ox month on January 5, 1985. So the Ox appears in this chart after all, as the month animal.

On a list of blended types, this person might look up "Aquarius Ox" and read the wrong entry. Their layers are an Aquarius sun, a Rat year and an Ox month. The Rat and the Ox are one of the six classical harmony pairs, a tie a Chinese reader would point out. And the Aquarius sun and the Ox month describe this winter birthday from two sides: one follows the sun through the signs, the other marks the last month of the Chinese winter.

How to read both for yourself

1. Find your sun sign and note which half of it you were born in.
2. Find your year animal. Born in January or early February? Our Chinese zodiac sign calculator checks where your year starts.
3. Find your month animal in the list above.
4. Pair the sun sign with the month animal as two views of the season you were born in, and read the year animal on its own, as the layer about your year.
5. Add more layers if you want them. A Western natal chart adds your moon and rising signs, and the rising sign needs an exact birth time and place. A Chinese chart adds your day animal and your core element (the element of the day you were born), plus an hour animal if you know your birth time. Our guide to the Energy Chart explains all four pillars.

Neither system has been proven to predict events. Chinese astrology is a form of fortune telling, and we read it as a map of tendencies and timing, not fixed fate. Western astrology can be read in the same spirit. Side by side, they describe one birthday from two calendars that follow the same sun.