Chinese Zodiac Elements by Birth Year

Find the animal and element for your birth year

Chinese zodiac years combine one of twelve animals with one of five elements. The pairing repeats through a sixty-year cycle, so “Dragon” alone is not the full birth-year label: a Wood Dragon and a Metal Dragon belong to different years in the cycle.

Method and reproducibility

For each Gregorian year, the generator checks dates from January 1 forward and records the first date whose lunar calendar conversion reports that same lunar year. The published JSON includes the method statement, update date and all 107 records. This table uses Lunar New Year as the birth-year animal boundary; some Four Pillars schools use Start of Spring for specific chart calculations.

How the pairing works

The twelve-animal sequence and the ten Heavenly Stems move together. Each element appears twice in succession, once through a yang stem and once through a yin stem. That is why the same animal returns every twelve years while the exact animal-element combination returns every sixty years.

Explore one animal in context

Use the twelve-sign hub to see each animal’s recent years, exact Lunar New Year start dates, Five Element variations and traditional compatibility relationships.

What this table can—and cannot—tell you

The year pairing is useful as a cultural reference and a reflection prompt. It cannot establish a fixed personality or predict an outcome. A complete Four Pillars reading needs the date, time, location and relationships across all four pillars.