Chinese Calendar
The Chinese calendar, traditionally called the 农历 (Nónglì) or 阴历 (Yīnlì) in everyday speech, is a traditional calendar system used in China and other East Asian cultures. It is especially important for determining traditional holidays and festivals such as Chinese New Year, Lantern Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, and Mid-Autumn Festival.

You can download free yearly and monthly Chinese calendars here.

To generate a Chinese calendar for a specific year, select the year from the dropdown menu and click the Create Calendar button.

Generate a Chinese Calendar


Select the year: Create Calendar

  1. Calendar Type:    Yearly Calendar    Monthly Calendar
  2. Paper Size:    Letter    A4    Ledger    A3


1. What is the Chinese calendar?
Chinese calendar is often described as a lunisolar calendar because it combines observations of both the Moon and the Sun. Unlike the Gregorian calendar, which is based primarily on the Earth's movement around the Sun, the Chinese calendar uses the the Moon to determine months and the Sun to keep the lunar months aligned with the seasons.

The Chinese calendar also uses astronomical observations to determine important dates and seasonal divisions.

A traditional Chinese month begins around the new moon and normally lasts 29 or 30 days. Twelve lunar months therefore make a year of about 354 days—roughly 11 days shorter than a solar year. If nothing were done to correct this difference, Chinese lunar months would gradually move through the seasons. To prevent this, the calendar periodically adds an extra month, called an intercalary or leap month.

2. How does a Chinese year work?
A typical Chinese calendar year contains:
  • 12 lunar months in a regular year.
  • 13 lunar months in a leap year.
  • Months of either 29 or 30 days.
  • Approximately 354 days in a 12-month year.
  • Approximately 383–385 days in a year containing a leap month.
The leap month does not occur at a fixed point every few years. Its placement is determined by the relationship between lunar months and the Sun's position.

3. What is a Chinese leap month?
A leap month is an additional lunar month inserted to keep the calendar synchronized with the solar year.

For example, you might see a year described as having a “leap fourth month.” This means that after the normal fourth lunar month, another fourth month occurs before the calendar continues to the fifth month.

This is different from the Gregorian calendar's leap day. In the Gregorian system, we add one day to February. In the Chinese calendar, the correction is made by adding an entire lunar month.

4. The Chinese New Year
One of the best-known uses of the Chinese calendar is determining Chinese New Year, also called the Spring Festival (春节, Chūnjié).

Chinese New Year does not occur on January 1. Its date changes every year in the Gregorian calendar, generally falling between January 21 and February 20.

It begins on the first day of the first lunar month and is associated with the beginning of a new traditional year.

5. The 12 Chinese zodiac animals
Each Chinese calendar year is traditionally associated with one of 12 zodiac animals:
  • Rat
  • Ox
  • Tiger
  • Rabbit
  • Dragon
  • Snake
  • Horse
  • Goat
  • Monkey
  • Rooster
  • Dog
  • Pig
The animals repeat in a 12-year cycle.

For example, a Dragon year is followed by a Snake year, then a Horse year, and so on.

However, the traditional system is more complicated than simply assigning an animal to each year. Each year also has one of 10 Heavenly Stems, and the combination of the 10 stems with the 12 animals produces a 60-year cycle.

6. The Five Elements
Chinese calendrical tradition also associates years with five elements:
  • Wood
  • Fire
  • Earth
  • Metal
  • Water
These elements combine with the Heavenly Stems and zodiac animals. As a result, a particular animal does not simply repeat every 12 years in exactly the same form.

For example, there can be a Wood Dragon year, a Fire Dragon year, and so forth.

The complete stem-and-branch system repeats every 60 years.

7. How are the months determined?
The Moon goes through its phases approximately every 29.5 days. Traditional Chinese months are therefore based on lunar cycles.

A new month begins with a new moon. Because a lunar cycle isn't exactly 29 or 30 days, months alternate between approximately 29 days, called a short month or 30 days, called a long month.

Twelve such months are shorter than the solar year, so the calendar needs periodic adjustment through leap months.

8. How does the Sun fit into the calendar?
This is what makes the Chinese system lunisolar, rather than simply lunar.

The traditional calendar divides the solar year into 24 solar terms (二十四节气, èrshísì jiéqì). These correspond to particular positions of the Sun along its apparent annual path.

The solar terms help connect the lunar calendar to the agricultural seasons.

Examples include:
  • Beginning of Spring (立春, Lìchūn)
  • Spring Equinox (春分, Chūnfēn)
  • Beginning of Summer (立夏, Lìxià)
  • Summer Solstice (夏至, Xiàzhì)
  • Beginning of Autumn (立秋, Lìqiū)
  • Autumn Equinox (秋分, Qiūfēn)
  • Beginning of Winter (立冬, Lìdōng)
  • Winter Solstice (冬至, Dōngzhì)
These solar terms are particularly important because they provide the solar framework that keeps the lunar calendar synchronized with the seasons.

9. Why are the solar terms important for leap months?
A simplified way to understand the leap-month system is this:

The calendar has to fit lunar months into the solar year. Certain solar terms, called major solar terms (中气, zhōngqì), play an important role in deciding where a leap month is placed.

In the traditional rule, if a lunar month does not contain a major solar term, that month can be designated as the leap month.

This allows the calendar to remain synchronized with the seasons over long periods.

10. What is the Chinese calendar used for today?
The Gregorian calendar is the standard civil calendar in modern China and most of the world. However, the traditional Chinese calendar remains culturally important.

It is commonly used to determine or celebrate:
  • Chinese New Year
  • Lantern Festival
  • Qingming Festival
  • Dragon Boat Festival
  • Qixi Festival
  • Ghost Festival
  • Mid-Autumn Festival
  • Double Ninth Festival
  • Traditional birthdays and anniversaries
  • Some traditional wedding and auspicious dates
  • Agricultural and cultural observances
11. An important distinction: zodiac year vs. Chinese New Year
A common misunderstanding is that the Chinese zodiac year always changes on January 1.

It does not.

For traditional calendrical purposes, the zodiac year is associated with the traditional New Year system, so someone born in January or early February may belong to the previous zodiac year, depending on the exact date and the calendrical convention being used.

There is also an important distinction between Chinese New Year (Lunar New Year) and Lìchūn (Beginning of Spring). Different traditions and fortune-telling systems may use different boundaries when determining a person's zodiac sign.

In simple terms, think of the Chinese calendar as a Moon-based calendar that is periodically adjusted using the Sun:

Moon → determines the months
Sun → keeps the months aligned with the seasons
Leap month → corrects the difference between lunar and solar years
Zodiac + Heavenly Stems → identifies the traditional year within repeating cycles

So, although people often call it the "Chinese lunar calendar," lunisolar calendar is the more precise description.