Almanac

Chinese Almanac

Enter a date to see its heavenly stems and earthly branches, solar term, Jianchu officer, mansion on duty and clash — each one with the derivation shown.

This tool only reports items that follow explicit calendar rules, and spells out how each is derived. Traditional almanacs also print day-by-day lists of auspicious and inauspicious activities, which differ between schools — we leave those out.

Pick a date

Choose a day to see its traditional calendar data. The hour is optional; leave it blank to get only the year, month and day pillars.

This tool presents traditional calendar information as cultural and folkloric reference. It is not a verdict on your fate, and it is not medical, legal or investment advice. For anything that matters, go by real-world conditions and professional guidance.

Calendar data for this day

Pick a date and hit "Look up" — that's where the stems and branches, solar term, Jianchu officer, mansion and clash will show up.

About the almanac

What an almanac actually records

The Chinese almanac — also called the farmer's almanac or tongshu — is a system for tagging time with markers. It doesn't just tell you the month and day; it marks where that day sits within the sexagenary cycle, the solar terms, the lunar mansions and the various deities, so people can pick their days accordingly.

The key point: a good part of this system is calculable, not copied.

What this page computes

Item Basis
Four pillars The year pivots on Spring Begins, the month on the twelve principal terms, the day runs on an unbroken cycle of sixty, and the hour stem comes from the day stem by the "five rats" rule
Solar terms The sun's position in ecliptic longitude, given here down to the minute
Twelve Jianchu The day matching the month's own branch is "Jian"; the rest follow in order
28 lunar mansions The seven luminaries cycle by weekday and pair with the day branch in four groups
Peng Zu taboos One traditional line keyed to the day stem, one to the day branch
Clash and sha direction The branch six places away is the clash; the opposite palace of the three-harmony group is the sha direction
Void branches The two branches missing from the ten-day run the day pillar belongs to
Day deity Start position fixed by the month branch, then the twelve deities run forward

The two things people most often get wrong

One: the year pillar doesn't turn over on the lunar new year. The dividing line for the sexagenary year is Spring Begins. If Spring Begins falls on February 4 in 2026, then someone born on February 3 still carries the previous year's pillar.

Two: the month pillar doesn't turn over on the first of the month either. The dividing line for the sexagenary month is the twelve principal terms (Spring Begins, Insects Awaken, Pure Brightness…) and not the twelve mid-terms (Rain Water, Spring Equinox, Grain Rain…). That's the step people most often botch when they cast a chart by hand.

What the Jianchu are

Jianchu sorts days into twelve kinds — Jian, Chu, Man, Ping, Ding, Zhi, Po, Wei, Cheng, Shou, Kai and Bi — running one per day from the day established by the month's branch. The traditional jingle goes:

Jian, Man, Ping and Shou are black; Chu, Wei, Ding and Zhi are yellow; Cheng and Kai can all be used; Po and Bi must not be faced.

Of these, Po and Bi are the days generally considered worst for getting anything done.

What this page deliberately leaves out

The daily list of favorable and unfavorable activities. This is the most contested part of any almanac: different editions and different schools routinely disagree about the same day, and today's versions are largely the product of centuries of additions and deletions that no single rule can reproduce. We'd rather give you nothing than hand you a list you can't verify.

If you do want activity guidance, consult an almanac you trust and cross-check it against the verifiable items listed here.

FAQ

Why don't I see anything about "good for weddings / bad for breaking ground"?
Daily activity lists vary widely between almanacs and schools, and they are mostly the accumulated result of generations of edits with no consistent rule behind them. This page only provides items that can be computed from explicit formulas and that you can verify yourself — we avoid printing conclusions you can't check.
Why doesn't the year pillar start at the lunar new year?
The dividing line for the sexagenary year is Spring Begins, not the first day of the first lunar month. That's how the calendar is defined: the stems and branches follow the sun (the solar terms), while the lunar months follow the moon. Two separate systems. Both the year and month pillars on this page are bounded by solar terms.
Can I leave the hour blank?
Yes. With no hour specified you'll get only the year, month and day pillars. The hour pillar is derived from the day stem and can't be worked out without knowing the hour.
Why does another site give a different result for the same day?
The most common reason is a different boundary rule — some sites switch the year pillar at the lunar new year, others at Spring Begins. After that come time-zone and solar-term precision differences. This page switches the year at Spring Begins and the month at the twelve principal terms, gives solar terms down to the minute, and prints the rule next to each item so you can tell where a discrepancy comes from.
How are the solar-term moments calculated?
A solar term is the instant the sun reaches a specific ecliptic longitude. This page uses astronomical ephemeris data covering 1899 to 2101 (based on the Shouxing astronomical calendar algorithm), accurate to the minute and displayed throughout in UTC+8.