Datetime Tools · Chinese calendar
Chinese lunar to Gregorian converter.
Turn a Chinese lunar date into its Gregorian date, or the reverse, with leap months handled explicitly. Look up Lunar New Year, Mid-Autumn and other festival dates and the zodiac animal for any year from 1901 to 2100.
Choose a direction
Conversion result
Enter a date above to see its equivalent.
Worked example: Mid-Autumn Festival 2026
The Mid-Autumn Festival is lunar month 8, day 15. In lunar year 2026 (Bing-wu, year of the Horse), lunar month 1 begins on 17 February 2026. Month 8 begins on 11 September 2026, so day 15 is 25 September 2026. For a leap-month example, lunar year 2025 (Yi-si, year of the Snake) repeats month 6: regular month 6 starts on 25 June 2025 and the leap month 6 starts on 25 July 2025.
How the conversion works
Lunar months start on the day of the new moon, so they last 29 or 30 days, and twelve of them are about 11 days shorter than a solar year. About every two to three years a lunar year gets a 13th month, repeating the number of the month it follows (the leap month). Which month repeats follows from the solar terms, and it is not a fixed rule you can compute with simple arithmetic, so this tool does not guess.
Instead it embeds the month boundaries of the Hong Kong Observatory table: for each lunar year, the Gregorian date of lunar new year, which month (if any) is the leap month, and whether each month has 29 or 30 days. Converting is then counting days from the start of the right month. Every one of the 72,999 days from 19 February 1901 to 31 December 2100 was checked against HKO's yearly text files and round-trips exactly.
Zodiac year. The animal and the stem-branch name (for example Bing-wu) follow the lunar year, which turns over at Lunar New Year, not on 1 January and not at the start of spring (Li Chun). The animal cycle is Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig; the animal for year Y is entry (Y − 4) mod 12, and 1901, 2026 and 2027 match HKO's headings (Ox, Horse, Goat).
Festival lookup. Each festival is a fixed lunar month and day taken in the regular (non-leap) month: Lunar New Year 1/1, Lantern Festival 1/15, Dragon Boat 5/5, Qixi 7/7, Mid-Autumn 8/15, Double Ninth 9/9. The result is the festival's calendar date, not any government holiday, since public holidays can be observed on a different day from the festival itself.
Supported range and limits
Gregorian dates from 19 February 1901 (lunar new year 1901) to 31 December 2100 are supported; HKO's table covers 1901–2100. Earlier January and February 1901 dates belong to lunar year 1900, which the table does not include. Lunar year 2100 stops at day 1 of month 12 (31 December 2100), because later days fall after the table ends.
HKO notes that its dates are calculated decades ahead and the uncertainty can reach a few minutes. If a new moon or solar term falls close to midnight, a month boundary can differ by one day between sources. HKO lists 28 September 2057, 4 September 2089 and 7 August 2097 as such new moons. Other almanacs can differ from HKO in rare cases, so check the one your community follows.
Sources and provenance
Sources checked 30 September 2026. Hong Kong Observatory, Gregorian-Lunar Calendar Conversion Table (1901 to 2100), using its yearly text files, for example T2026e.txt. Zodiac and stem-branch names were cross-checked against the headings of those files. Festival lunar dates are the traditional ones; HKO's table does not list festivals.
Method note: This is a lookup against a published table, not an astronomical calculator. For legal, religious or ceremonial dates, confirm with the almanac used in your community.
FAQ
When is Lunar New Year 2027?
Enter 2027 in the festival lookup. It is lunar month 1, day 1, and it opens the year of the Goat (Ding-wei).
How do I convert a date in a leap month?
Pick the month number and tick the leap month box. For 2025 the leap month is month 6; ticking it for any other number returns an error rather than a made-up date.
Is my Chinese zodiac animal decided by 1 January?
No. Someone born in January or early February before Lunar New Year belongs to the previous lunar year's animal. Convert the birth date to see the lunar year and animal.
Why does the same lunar date fall on different Gregorian dates each year?
Twelve lunar months are about 354 days, so lunar dates drift roughly 11 days earlier each year until a leap month pulls them back. Lunar New Year always lands between 21 January and 20 February.