Convert any Gregorian (Western) date into the traditional Chinese Lunar Calendar. The free converter returns the lunar month and day, the zodiac animal for that year, the current solar term, and the day's auspicious and inauspicious activities from the Chinese almanac.
The Chinese calendar is lunisolar: months follow the moon (each month starts on a new moon) while leap months keep the year aligned with the seasons. The Gregorian calendar is purely solar. Our converter maps a civil date to the corresponding lunar year, month, and day, including the 60-year stem-branch cycle used in Chinese timekeeping.
Each result includes the lunar date, the zodiac animal of that lunar year, the solar term (节气) that marks the season, and the traditional 宜 (recommended) and 忌 (to avoid) activities for that day. These almanac notes are cultural guidance, not medical or legal advice.
About every three years the Chinese calendar inserts a leap month so festivals stay in season. Dates that fall in a leap month are labelled as such in the result. The same Gregorian date can therefore map to different lunar months across years.
The Chinese lunisolar calendar (农历) has more than 3,000 years of documented history: Shang dynasty oracle bones already record the 60-day stem-branch cycle. Court astronomers refined lunisolar systems so farming stayed aligned with the seasons. In 104 BCE, under Emperor Wu of Han, a team including Deng Ping, Luo Xiahong, and Sima Qian issued the Taichu Calendar (太初历). It was the first fully recorded official calendar to integrate the 24 solar terms (节气) and to insert a leap month wherever a lunar month contains no major solar term (无中气置闰)-rules still used today.