Chinese Zodiac Compatibility vs Western: Which Is More Accurate?

Which is more accurate, Chinese or Western compatibility?

Neither system has been shown to predict whether a couple will last, so the useful question is what each one looks at. Western astrology compares where the sun, moon and planets stood when each of you was born. Chinese astrology compares the animals and elements of your birth year, month, day and hour, and in both traditions a single sign gives only the quick version of a much longer reading.

Below are the sun sign pairs and chart comparison of the West, the animal ties and five elements of China, and an example couple read both ways. At Elemental Astro we treat Chinese astrology as a form of fortune telling that we read as a map of tendencies and timing, not fixed fate, and we read compatibility the same way. For the wider picture of how the two traditions differ, see our complete comparison of Eastern and Western astrology.

How Western astrology reads a couple

Sun sign pairs

Your sun sign is the sign the sun was passing through on your birthday. Most American horoscopes use the tropical zodiac, which splits the sun's yearly path into twelve signs of 30 degrees each, counted from the March equinox. Every sign belongs to one of four elements:

• Fire: Aries, Leo and Sagittarius
• Earth: Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn
• Air: Gemini, Libra and Aquarius
• Water: Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces

Sun sign compatibility looks at the angle between two signs on the zodiac wheel. Astrologers call these angles aspects. Signs of the same element sit four places apart, at 120 degrees, which is called a trine and is read as easy flow. Fire and Air are usually read as good company for each other, and so are Earth and Water. Signs three places apart form a square, at 90 degrees, read as friction that pushes both people to grow. Signs six places apart face each other across the wheel, an opposition, read as a strong pull between two people who balance each other out.

Synastry: comparing two whole charts

Most Western astrologers treat sun sign matching as a starting point. The fuller method is synastry, which lays one person's natal chart over the other's. A natal chart is a map of the sky at the moment you were born. It places the sun, the moon and the planets in the twelve signs and in twelve houses, sections of the chart tied to areas of life such as home, work and partnership.

In synastry the astrologer reads the aspects between the two charts. Contacts between one person's sun or moon and the other's are read for how easily the two understand each other. Venus and Mars contacts are read for attraction, Mercury for how the two talk, and Saturn for commitment and staying power. The astrologer also notes which of your houses your partner's planets land in. Many add a composite chart, one chart built from the midpoints between the two people's planets, which is read as the relationship itself.

The moon changes sign about every two and a half days. The rising sign, the sign coming up over the eastern horizon as you were born, changes about every two hours. So a full synastry reading needs both birthdays, and for the rising signs and houses it also needs accurate birth times and places.

How Chinese astrology reads a couple

The ties between animals

The Chinese zodiac is a cycle of twelve animals in a fixed order: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig. Most people know the animal of their birth year. Like the Western signs, the animals sit around a wheel, and classical almanacs name a set of ties between them. Most compatibility readings start with these four:

• Six harmony (liu he): Rat and Ox, Tiger and Pig, Rabbit and Dog, Dragon and Rooster, Snake and Monkey, Horse and Goat. The closest bond between two animals, sometimes called secret friends.
• Trine (san he): Rat, Dragon and Monkey (Water); Ox, Snake and Rooster (Metal); Tiger, Horse and Dog (Fire); Rabbit, Goat and Pig (Wood). Natural allies; each group of three is linked to one element.
• Clash (liu chong): Rat and Horse, Ox and Goat, Tiger and Monkey, Rabbit and Rooster, Dragon and Dog, Snake and Pig. Opposites on the wheel, read as a pull in different directions that brings friction and change.
• Harm (liu hai): Rat and Goat, Ox and Horse, Tiger and Snake, Rabbit and Dragon, Monkey and Pig, Rooster and Dog. Quieter friction, often read as small misunderstandings that build up.

Pairs with none of these ties are read as open, with nothing in the tradition pulling them together or apart. Classical texts list a few more ties, called punishments and breaks, that come up less often. A tie describes what the tradition expects of a pair of animals, not what will happen between two real people. Our Chinese zodiac compatibility pages score the four ties listed above and then look at how the two animals' own elements meet. The Rat and Horse page, for example, shows how a clash is read.

The five elements

Chinese astrology works with five elements instead of four: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water. Each animal has an element of its own. The Rat and Pig are Water, the Tiger and Rabbit are Wood, the Snake and Horse are Fire, the Monkey and Rooster are Metal, and the Ox, Dragon, Goat and Dog are Earth. Each year also carries an element from that year's stem, which is why 1996 was a Fire Rat year and 2008 an Earth Rat year, while the Rat itself stays Water.

The elements meet in two cycles. In the generating cycle each one feeds the next: Wood feeds Fire, Fire feeds Earth, Earth feeds Metal, Metal feeds Water and Water feeds Wood. In the controlling cycle each one checks another: Wood checks Earth, Earth checks Water, Water checks Fire, Fire checks Metal and Metal checks Wood. A pair on the generating cycle is read as support. A pair on the controlling cycle is read as one person keeping the other in check, which can steady a couple or strain it. Our guide to the five elements covers both cycles.

The full reading: two whole charts

A Chinese birth chart, which we call the Energy Chart (it is also known as BaZi or the Four Pillars), has four pillars: year, month, day and hour. Each pillar pairs a stem, which carries an element, with a branch, which is one of the twelve animals. So everyone has four animals, and the hour animal needs a birth time.

A full reading checks the ties between every animal in one chart and every animal in the other. Many practitioners give extra weight to the two day animals, because tradition links the day animal with your partner and married life. The reader also compares core elements. Your core element is the element of your birth day's stem, the part of the chart that stands for you. Last comes timing: which years, and which ten year chapters of each life (often called luck pillars), bring the pair support or pressure.

Where the two wheels agree

Both systems set twelve signs around a wheel, and two of their rules line up. Signs four places apart form a trine in both: Aries, Leo and Sagittarius share Fire in the West, and the Tiger, Horse and Dog make up the Fire trine in China. Signs six places apart face each other in both. The West reads an opposition as a pull between opposites, and the Chinese clash leans more toward friction and change.

The quick versions compare different things, though. A Western sun sign changes about once a month, so the quick read compares the time of year each of you was born. A Chinese year animal changes once a year, so it compares birth years.

One couple, read both ways

Take two people we invented for this guide: Maya, born July 30, 1996, and Daniel, born November 27, 1990. Neither knows a birth time.

The Western quick read. Maya is a Leo and Daniel is a Sagittarius. Both are Fire signs four places apart, a trine, so a sun sign column would call them an easy, lively match.

The Chinese quick read. Maya was born in a Fire Rat year and Daniel in a Metal Horse year. The Rat and the Horse are a clash. The animals' own elements, Water for the Rat and Fire for the Horse, also sit on the controlling cycle, where Water checks Fire. A zodiac placemat would list them as opposites.

The Chinese full read. Birthdays alone give each of them three of the four pillars:

• Year animal: Maya: Rat. Daniel: Horse.
• Month animal: Maya: Goat. Daniel: Pig.
• Day animal: Maya: Dragon. Daniel: Monkey.
• Core element: Maya: Earth. Daniel: Fire.

Those six animals make nine cross pairs. Her Goat month and his Horse year are a six harmony pair (see the Horse and Goat page). Their Goat and Pig months share the Wood trine. Her Rat year and her Dragon day both form the Water trine with his Monkey day, so their day animals are trine allies. The other four pairs have no main tie, and the year clash is the only clash. Their core elements sit on the generating cycle, where Daniel's Fire feeds Maya's Earth. A Chinese reader keeps the clash in the reading and weighs it against the links in the month and day pillars. Birth times would add two hour animals to check.

The Western full read. We have not placed their planets here, so this part stays general. Synastry would place both moons, Venus, Mars and the other planets, and with birth times and places it would add rising signs and houses. Two Fire suns can come with moons that sit easily together or moons that square each other, and the reading shifts with them.

The two quick reads disagree, and in both traditions a practitioner would lean on the full reading.

So which one should you use?

If accuracy means predicting who stays together, neither system has been shown to do it. One of the largest tests of sun sign matching, by the social scientist David Voas in 2007, used the 2001 census of England and Wales, about ten million married couples, and found no evidence that sun signs shaped who married whom. It tested sun signs only, which many Western astrologers call a small part of a chart, and we know of no test that large for the Chinese animals.

Whole chart against whole chart, the two traditions answer different questions. Synastry talks about needs, attraction and how two people talk. A Chinese reading talks about the ties between animals, the balance of elements, and which years ask more of a couple. Many people read both.