The Chinese zodiac 生肖
Twelve animals follow a fixed order and repeat on a twelve-year cycle, so each year is associated with one of them. To find your sign, take your birth year and step through the cycle — but note that the zodiac year begins at Chinese New Year (late January or February), not on 1 January.
This year
2026 马馬 mǎ maa5 Feb 17, 2026 – Feb 5, 2027
| Year | Animal |
|---|---|
| 2026 | 马馬 |
| 2027 | 羊 |
| 2028 | 猴 |
| 2029 | 鸡雞 |
| 2030 | 狗 |
| 2031 | 猪豬 |
| 2032 | 鼠 |
- 1 鼠 shǔ syu2
Rat — quick-witted, resourceful and thrifty; first of the twelve.
Full profile → - 2 牛 niú ngau4
Ox — patient, dependable and hard-working.
Full profile → - 3 虎 hǔ fu2
Tiger — bold, confident and competitive.
Full profile → - 4 兔 tù
Rabbit — gentle, careful and quietly elegant.
Full profile → - 5 龙龍 lóng lung4
Dragon — energetic and charismatic; the only mythical animal, and an auspicious sign to be born under.
Full profile → - 6 蛇 shé se4
Snake — thoughtful, observant and reserved.
Full profile → - 7 马馬 mǎ maa5
Horse — lively, free-spirited and warm.
Full profile → - 8 羊 yáng joeng4
Goat — gentle, kind and creative.
Full profile → - 9 猴 hóu
Monkey — clever, playful and inventive.
Full profile → - 10 鸡雞 jī gai1
Rooster — observant, honest and hard-working.
Full profile → - 11 狗 gǒu gau2
Dog — loyal, honest and protective.
Full profile → - 12 猪豬 zhū zyu1
Pig — easy-going, generous and good-natured; last of the twelve.
Full profile →
History of the zodiac
The Chinese zodiac (生肖, shēngxiào) assigns one of twelve animals to each year in a repeating cycle: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig. The system grew out of the much older sexagenary calendar, in which ten heavenly stems and twelve earthly branches combine into a sixty-year cycle; over time each of the twelve branches came to be paired with an animal, and that animal cycle is what most people know today. The twelve signs spread far beyond China to Korea, Japan, Vietnam and elsewhere, with a few local substitutions — the Cat in place of the Rabbit in Vietnam, for instance. People still use the cycle to name a year and, light-heartedly, to talk about the personality traditionally tied to each animal.
The Great Race
The best-loved explanation of the order is the legend of the Great Race. The Jade Emperor announced that the years would be named after animals in the order they reached him across a great river. The Rat, a poor swimmer, hitched a ride on the willing Ox and leapt ashore at the finish to win first place, with the Ox a generous second. The powerful Tiger struggled in against the current to take third, and the nimble Rabbit hopped over stones and logs to fourth. The Dragon could have flown ahead but stopped to bring rain to a village and to help the Rabbit, finishing fifth; the Snake, hidden on the Horse’s hoof, startled it at the bank to slip into sixth ahead of the seventh-place Horse. The Goat, Monkey and Rooster crossed together on a raft to take eighth, ninth and tenth, the Dog dawdled to bathe and came eleventh, and the well-fed Pig ambled in last to complete the twelve. The story is folklore — a charming way to remember the sequence, not a historical account.
Find your year
A zodiac year does not begin on 1 January. It starts at Chinese New Year — a date set by the lunisolar calendar that falls somewhere between late January and the third week of February — and runs to the day before the next New Year. So anyone born in January or early February may belong to the previous year’s animal. Use the dates in each animal’s profile to check the exact period rather than going by the Western year alone.