Lunisolar dates

Lunar Calendar Converter

Convert any Gregorian date into its Chinese lunisolar equivalent — the lunar year, month and day, the zodiac animal, the stem-and-branch name and whether it falls inside a leap month.

—Chinese lunar date
—In Chinese
—Zodiac year
—Stem and branch
—Length of this lunar month
—Leap month this year
—Lunar New Year
—Next Lunar New Year
—Days until next new year
Lunar monthChineseBeginsDays
Months are computed from astronomical new moons at UTC+8 and from the 24 solar terms, which is how the modern Chinese calendar is officially defined. Calendars printed for Vietnam and Korea use different meridians and can occasionally differ by one day.

All astronomy is computed in your browser — nothing is uploaded.

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Real astronomy

New moons and solar terms are computed from astronomical formulae, not a fixed lookup table.

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Zodiac and stems

Every result includes the animal sign and the sexagenary stem-branch name of the year.

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Leap months handled

The no-major-term rule is applied properly, so leap months are identified correctly.

How to use the lunar calendar converter

Pick a Gregorian date and the matching lunisolar date is computed from first principles.

  1. Choose a dateUse the date picker for any day, past or future.
  2. Read the lunar dateThe lunar year, month and day appear along with the Chinese characters and zodiac animal.
  3. Explore the yearThe table lists every month of that lunar year with its start date and length.

About the Chinese lunisolar calendar

A purely lunar calendar drifts through the seasons because twelve lunar months fall about eleven days short of a solar year. The Chinese calendar solves this by staying tied to both: months follow the moon exactly, while an occasional thirteenth month keeps the year anchored to the sun. The result is a calendar in which the moon phase is always predictable from the date, and the seasons never drift.

Months follow the moon

Every month begins on the day containing an astronomical new moon, so the first of the month is always a dark moon and the fifteenth is close to full.

Solar terms

The solar year is also divided into 24 terms at 15-degree steps of solar longitude. The twelve major terms decide where leap months go.

The sexagenary cycle

Ten heavenly stems and twelve earthly branches combine into a 60-year cycle. 2026 is Bing-Wu, the year of the Horse.

Leap months

Roughly seven years in every nineteen carry a leap month, following the same Metonic pattern that governs the Hebrew calendar.

Lunar calendar converter FAQ

Questions about lunisolar rules, leap months and Lunar New Year.

How is the Chinese lunar calendar calculated?

It is lunisolar. Each month begins on the day of an astronomical new moon as observed at UTC+8, and the month containing the December solstice is always month 11. When a cycle between two month-11 new moons contains 13 new moons, one month is designated a leap month.

Which month becomes the leap month?

The first month in the cycle that contains no major solar term, or zhongqi. It repeats the number of the month before it, so a leap month following the second month is called leap second month.

Why does Chinese New Year move around?

It falls on the new moon that begins month 1, which is normally the second new moon after the December solstice. That places it somewhere between 21 January and 20 February in the Gregorian calendar.

Is this the same as the Vietnamese or Korean calendar?

They share the same lunisolar rules but are computed for different meridians — Vietnam uses UTC+7. That occasionally shifts a month boundary by a day, so the calendars can differ slightly in some years.

How accurate is this converter?

It computes new moons and solar terms astronomically rather than looking them up in a table, so it works across a wide range of years. Very occasionally a month boundary near local midnight can differ by a day from an official almanac.

Explore more free tools: Hijri Calendar ConverterMoon Phase CalculatorChinese Zodiac Calculator