What's My Zodiac Animal by Birth Year? 1940–2027 Chart (Start-of-Spring Rule)

Your zodiac animal comes from the year you were born. Find your birth year in the chart below and the animal next to it is yours. There's one catch, and it's the reason this page exists. In K-SaJu (Korean astrology), a new year starts at the start of spring, which lands around February 4. So if your birthday falls in January or the first days of February, the animal belongs to the year before.

Want to skip the chart? Type your birthday into our free zodiac date checker and it tells you your animal in a few seconds, including the tricky January cases. Most zodiac charts online stop at the table. This one comes with a box for your date.

Find your animal in 10 seconds

Each animal comes back every 12 years. Here are all of them, with every birth year from 1940 to 2027:

If you were born after about February 5, you're done. Your animal is the one in your birth year's row. If you were born earlier in the year, keep reading for one short check.

Zodiac animal birth year chart, 1940 to 2027

This is the full list. The last column shows the exact moment each year began, Korea time. Born on that date after that minute, or any day later in the year? The animal in the second column is yours. Born on January 1 or any time before that moment? Your animal is the one in the row above.

Each year name pairs a nature word with the animal, like Steel Dragon or Rain Rabbit. The nature word comes from the top half of the year and cycles every 10 years, so the same name returns once every 60 years. People born in 1967 and 2027 are both Candle Sheep, for example.

The clock times follow the Korea clock in use at the time. Korea ran its clocks 30 minutes off from today's setting from 1954 to 1961, and those rows use that older clock. The moment itself is the same everywhere on Earth, so if you were born abroad, convert it to your own city's time.

January and early February birthdays

Here's where most charts and K-SaJu part ways. A typical chart switches animals at Lunar New Year, a date that drifts between late January and mid-February. K-SaJu waits for the start of spring, a moment that barely moves at all. Every year in the chart above began on February 3, 4 or 5.

That gives you a simple rule of thumb:

• Born in January: take the animal of the year before. A January 1995 baby is a Dog, not a Pig.
• Born February 1 or 2: same answer, the previous year's animal.
• Born February 3, 4 or 5: check the time in the chart. Before that minute, the previous year. After it, the new one.
• Born February 6 or later: your birth year's animal, no check needed.

A few real dates show how this plays out. On January 30, 2025, Lunar New Year had already come the day before, so a Lunar New Year chart calls that baby a Snake. In K-SaJu, the start of spring was still five days away, so the baby is a Dragon. February 15, 2026 goes the other way. Lunar New Year was two days off, but spring had already started on February 4, so K-SaJu says Horse while the other chart still says Snake.

Even the same morning can split. Spring began at 4:37 a.m. on February 4, 1993. A baby born in Seoul at 3 a.m. that day is a Monkey, and one born at 6 a.m. is a Rooster.

Born on February 3, 4 or 5? The free zodiac date checker tells you when your birthday sits on the line, and the chart above gives you the exact minute to compare with your birth time.

Why the year starts at the start of spring

K-SaJu builds its calendar from the sun. The year is split into 12 solar months, and the first one opens at the start of spring (Ipchun, 立春), when the sun reaches a fixed point on its yearly path. Most Korean saju books and almanacs agree that the year animal changes at that exact moment, not on January 1 and not at Lunar New Year.

In daily life, plenty of people in Korea still say their animal by the plain calendar year, so a January baby might hear a different answer from a grandparent. Both are fine for chatting. When you read a K-SaJu chart, though, the start of spring is the line that counts, and that's the line this chart uses.

Your year animal is also just one of four animals in your chart. There's one for your month, one for your day and one for your hour. The day one says the most about you, and the free life reading shows all four together.

The 12 animals at a glance

• Rat: quick, clever and always has a plan B. Clever, resourceful, charming.
• Ox: steady, patient and the one people count on. Patient, dependable, hard-working.
• Tiger: brave, bold and ready to lead the pack. Brave, bold, protective.
• Rabbit: gentle, kind and quietly lucky. Kind, graceful, thoughtful.
• Dragon: big energy, big dreams, hard to ignore. Confident, ambitious, generous.
• Snake: calm on the outside, wise on the inside. Wise, calm, intuitive.
• Horse: free-spirited and always on the move. Energetic, free-spirited, warm.
• Sheep: soft-hearted, creative and easy to love. Creative, caring, gentle.
• Monkey: curious, funny and a natural problem-solver. Curious, funny, inventive.
• Rooster: honest, sharp and always put together. Honest, sharp, organized.
• Dog: loyal, fair and there when it counts. Loyal, fair, sincere.
• Pig: warm, generous and the heart of the dinner table. Generous, easygoing, big-hearted.

Questions people ask

What zodiac animal is 2027? 2027 is the year of the Sheep, a Candle Sheep (Jeong-mi, 丁未). It begins at 10:46 a.m. on February 4, 2027, Korea time.

I was born in January 2000. What's my animal? A Rabbit. The year 2000 Dragon didn't begin until 9:40 p.m. on February 4, 2000, so every January 2000 birthday belongs to 1999, the year of the Rabbit.

Why do other charts give me a different animal? Most of them switch at Lunar New Year. The two only disagree for birthdays between January 1 and about February 20, and K-SaJu always uses the start of spring.

Does my animal change if I was born abroad? The rule stays the same, but the clock reading changes with your time zone. Only births within a day of the line need the city.