CALENDAR AND CONVENTIONS
The calendar convention in this guide
A Chinese lunar-year reading from an entered Gregorian calendar date.
Go deeper: the full reference
Native app reference
This guide uses the Chinese lunisolar calendar's Lunar New Year boundary, expressed as a China civil calendar date (Asia/Shanghai). It maps the entered birth date as a date, without converting a birth instant between time zones. It reports the year animal, Heavenly Stem, Earthly Branch, Yin or Yang, and the Stem's Five Phase. Other traditions may use the solar term Li Chun for a year pillar; this is not a Four Pillars or BaZi calculation. These symbols offer historical and reflective language, not a diagnosis, prediction, or fixed description of a person.
Reading the examples
The following entries retain the native guide’s wording. When they mention “this calculator” or a returned date, they refer to that separate native year reader. The website’s pages are educational readings.
Keep the calendar convention in view
The website offers these educational readings. Synastry’s native year reader uses a civil date and Lunar New Year; it is separate from a full Four Pillars or BaZi chart. Begin with the convention before comparing year labels.
Sources and conventions
These references identify the calendar or historical method used in this guide. Keep the named convention in view when comparing other traditions.
Hong Kong Observatory — Gregorian–Lunar Calendar Conversion Tables ↗ · Calendar reference covering 1901–2100, including leap months and cautions near midnight boundaries. The Synastry native reader uses its separately disclosed date-only Lunar New Year convention; this website provides the educational guide.
Connect the ideas
Begin with the year, not a full chart
Learn the calendar language used by Synastry’s native Chinese lunar-year reading, with its limits and conventions kept visible.
1 min readA lunisolar calendar
Chinese calendar months follow lunar phases while the year stays aligned with seasons.
1 min readThe Lunar New Year boundary
This calculator changes the year placement on the first day of the first lunar month.
1 min readThe sixty-year stem-branch cycle
Ten Heavenly Stems pair in order with twelve Earthly Branches to form sixty year names.
1 min read