Check your zodiac animal by the Start of Spring

Your zodiac animal is a friendly name for the Earthly Branch of your birth year. Of the eight characters in a chart, the pair that stands for your birth year is the year pillar, and it changes at the Solar Term Boundary of the Start of Spring (Lichun), not on January 1 or Lunar New Year. The Start of Spring is the moment the Sun reaches 315° of celestial longitude, and it lands on much the same early-February date every year.

Counting the animal from Lunar New Year is a widespread everyday custom, and some older texts even treat the winter solstice as the start of the year. AevoStar follows long-standing Four Pillars practice and uses the Start of Spring, and the year pillar and Annual Luck on your result follow the same rule.

A January birth comes before that year's Start of Spring, so in the Four Pillars it takes the previous year's animal. For example, a baby born on January 20, 2027 has the year pillar 丙午 (Bing Wu) and is a Horse. Early February needs the date and the time together. Even on the day of the 2027 Start of Spring, a birth before 10:46 is a Horse, and a birth at or after it is a Goat.

In 2027, Lunar New Year (February 7 (Sun)) comes after the Start of Spring, so a baby born between the two is a Goat in the Four Pillars but may be given the previous year's animal by families who count from Lunar New Year.

A February birthday first needs a quick check against the Start of Spring. For births in Korea from 1900 to 2100, every Start of Spring falls on a Korean date between February 3 and February 5, so an earlier birthday takes the previous year's animal, a later one takes that year's, and a birthday inside that window needs that year's exact date. The date drifts because a year is about a quarter of a day longer than 365 days. The moment slips a few hours later each year, then moves back by about 18 hours once a leap day on February 29 has passed.

Enter your birth date and we'll show your zodiac animal by the Start of Spring, along with the year's stem and branch. Unless you were born on the day of the Start of Spring, you don't need your birth time. We use the date only to work out your animal and don't store it on our servers.

Only know your lunar birthday? Use the chart input screen instead of this tool. Choose Lunar and mark a leap month if it was one, and we convert the date to its solar date before comparing it with the Start of Spring. The branch of the year pillar on your result is your animal; lunar dates are accepted for 1900–2100 and for births in South Korea, North Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore and Malaysia.

Each row shows that year's Start of Spring in Korea time, with the stem-and-branch name and animal of the year that begins at that moment. If your birth came before that moment, use the row above, the previous year; if it came at or after it, use that row. A birth in the same minute as the Start of Spring counts as the new year. If you were born outside Korea, the Korea times in the table can't be compared directly. Choose "Another country" in the tool above and it finds your animal. If your date falls within a day of the Start of Spring, it points you to the chart input screen to add your birth time and place.

The times are our own astronomical calculations, rounded to the minute. In some years they differ by one minute from published tables, and the calculation guide explains why. The Lunar New Year column comes from the same engine's Korean lunar calendar.

Three rules for counting the animal are in common use. January 1 is the quick way when only the birth year is known, Lunar New Year fits how many families and holidays mark the new year, and the Four Pillars use the Start of Spring because their calendar divides the year by the Sun's position. Lunar New Year is the first day of the lunar calendar, so its solar date moves between January 21 and February 20, and its gap from the Start of Spring changes every year. The table below compares two 2027 birthdays under each rule.

On the day of the Start of Spring, the animal can change partway through the day. Enter that date in the tool and it shows both animals along with that day's Start of Spring time; choose "Add birth time" and the chart input screen opens with the date filled in. With no time entered, a Korean birth is placed at noon standard time on that day: if noon is at or after the Start of Spring the result shows the new animal, and if noon comes first it shows the previous one.

The Start of Spring is one moment for the whole planet, but written in another country's time it can fall on a different date. Korea's 05:02 on February 4, 2026 was 12:02 on February 3 in Los Angeles. If you were born abroad near the Start of Spring, enter your country, city and local time on the chart input screen to check your year pillar (births outside Korea).

To read the table in another country's time, start from the UTC column and add the offset that country used on that day.

The twelve animals follow the twelve branches in order, from 子 (Zi) to 亥 (Hai), so the same animal comes back every 12 years, while the full stem-and-branch pair repeats only once every 60 years. On our English pages the animal for 未 (Wei) is the Goat, and other English sources may call the same animal the Sheep or the Ram.

Your animal is one of the eight characters in your chart: the branch of the year pillar. The character AevoStar starts from when describing your temperament is the stem of your birth day, the Day Master, so people of the same animal still divide into ten Day Masters. That's why we don't read people by their animal alone and look at your whole Natal Chart instead.