01 · Date mapping
Gregorian and lunar dates
The converter pairs one Gregorian civil date with a Chinese lunar year, numbered month, and day. It can also work in reverse when the lunar year, month, day, and leap-month status are supplied.
A result shows both English and Chinese date notation, together with the sexagenary year name and its zodiac branch. The permanent date page keeps those labels together in a shareable calendar sheet.
02 · Civil time
A date without a time
Converter inputs are civil dates, so they contain no hour or timezone. “Today” follows the Asia/Hong_Kong civil date and changes at local midnight. A saved date page always refers to the written Gregorian date in its address.
03 · Lunar structure
Regular and leap months
Lunar months contain 29 or 30 days. In some years one numbered month occurs twice; the second occurrence is the leap month. Reverse conversion therefore needs an explicit leap-month choice, and dates that do not occur in the selected month return an error.
04 · Converter range
Available dates
Lunar inputs use years 1900–2050.
1901-01-012050-12-31
05 · Almanac notation
Year, term, phase, direction, Yi and Ji labels
The sexagenary year name pairs a Heavenly Stem with an Earthly Branch; the branch supplies the familiar zodiac animal. Date sheets also show the day pillar and related cycle labels used in traditional almanacs.
The twenty-four solar terms divide the Sun’s annual path into equal segments and keep the lunisolar calendar connected to the seasons. The exact instants on this site use China Standard Time (UTC+8). Twelve jie terms open solar branch months; the twelve qi terms do not, and neither group directly opens a lunar month.
Joy, Blessing, and Wealth directions follow the day’s heavenly stem. Two traditional tables exist for the Blessing direction; this calendar consistently uses the second table. Joy and Wealth each use their single standard table.
The auspicious-date table follows the solar branch month opened by each jie term when it selects Yi (宜) and Ji (忌) activities. Each entry keeps its Chinese wording beside a plain-English meaning.
06 · Context
Modern and regional conventions
This site follows modern Chinese lunisolar date conventions. Historical records, local almanacs, and family practice can use different wording or different rules for traditional interpretation even when the underlying date agrees.
Birth dates & shared calendar cycles
Personal profiles and compatibility
A birthday identifies the lunar year beginning at Chinese New Year, not 1 January or Beginning of Spring. Its year stem supplies the changing element and Yin or Yang; its branch supplies the animal. The fixed element of an animal’s branch is a separate correspondence. A date-only profile does not calculate a complete Four Pillars birth chart.
Lunar birthdays keep the original numbered month, day and leap-month status. An exact leap-month birthday may not occur every year. The birthday finder makes any family observance alternatives explicit rather than silently changing the recorded date.
The personal calendar compares a birth-year branch with each civil day’s branch. Compatibility compares two birth-year branches; the optional date-and-animal mode instead compares a day branch. Both show Six Harmonies, three-harmony groups, seasonal meetings and Six Clashes. Two members of a three-branch group are a shared group, not a complete triple.
Love, friendship and business sections offer discussion prompts drawn from those traditional relationships, not measured scores. Character descriptions, strengths, challenges, numbers and colors are popular symbolic associations, not quantities derived from a birthday. The compass position is the branch’s position on the zodiac compass, not a personalized lucky direction.
The current-year reflection compares the birth-year branch with the current lunar year, changing at Chinese New Year. Activity recommendations still come from the day’s Yi and Ji lists; a personal branch match never changes them. No profile is saved to an account. Submitted dates can remain in the page address, browser history and ordinary site logs.
Daily almanac · clock convention
Auspicious hours and the midnight boundary
The displayed clock uses UTC+8. The traditional hour-god cycle labels each interval auspicious or inauspicious independently of the day’s activity lists. A favorable hour alone does not mean every activity is suitable.
Zi, the Rat double-hour, spans midnight. Each civil day therefore has thirteen displayed fragments: 00:00–00:59, eleven two-hour intervals, and 23:00–23:59. The late Zi fragment begins the following day’s hourly cycle and can differ from the early Zi fragment. Civil-date labels elsewhere on this site still change at midnight.
Moon phase conventions
Calculated moments, civil-date labels
Phase events are calculated independently of lunar-date conversion and displayed to the minute in fixed UTC+8. The date is assigned from the unrounded event time. This avoids historical daylight-saving changes affecting the phase calendar.
A civil date containing new moon, first quarter, full moon or last quarter receives that principal phase label. Dates between those moments receive the corresponding waxing or waning label. Icons are schematic, not measured illumination percentages.
Modern Chinese lunar months begin on new-moon days. Historical calendar conventions can differ: the phase calculation and the conversion table disagree on the opening dates around 18 November 1914, 4 February 1916 and 11 November 1920. The site preserves both readings rather than moving the converted lunar date.