Chinese Lunar Calendar Converter

• Western → Lunar
• Lunar → Western

Chinese New Year (春节, Chūn Jié) is the first day of the first lunar month — 正月初一. Because the lunar year is about eleven days shorter than the solar year, it never lands on the same Western date twice in a row, but it always falls between 21 January and 21 February.

Learn what to say when it arrives: Chinese New Year Greetings.

The Chinese calendar is lunisolar: its months follow the moon and its years follow the sun. It is often called 农历 (nónglì, "farming calendar") or 阴历 (yīnlì, "moon calendar"); the Western calendar is 公历 (gōnglì) or 阳历 (yánglì).

Months follow the moon

Each lunar month begins on the day of a new moon, so the first day is always 初一 (chūyī) and the full moon falls around 十五 (shíwǔ). A lunation is roughly 29.5 days, so months are 29 or 30 days long — never a fixed pattern, and this is why the tool needs a real table rather than a formula. That is also why the two biggest festivals of the year, the Lantern Festival and Mid-Autumn, both fall on the fifteenth: they are full-moon festivals.

Years follow the sun, using leap months

Twelve lunar months come to about 354 days — eleven short of the solar year. Left alone, the calendar would drift a full season out of step within a decade, and a "farming calendar" that puts the spring festival in autumn is useless. The fix is a leap month (闰月, rùnyuè): seven times every nineteen years, a whole extra month is inserted, giving a year of 383 or 384 days.

A leap month has no name of its own. It repeats the month before it with the prefix 闰, so 2023 had a 闰二月 — a second second month — and 2025 has a 闰六月. Which month gets doubled depends on where the solar terms fall, so there is no simple rotation to memorise.

Month names

The first month is 正月 (zhēngyuè) rather than 一月, and the twelfth is 腊月 (làyuè) rather than 十二月 — those are the names a Chinese calendar actually prints. Days are counted 初一 to 初十, then 十一 to 二十, then 廿一 to 三十.

Reading the ordinary Western date aloud in Chinese works differently again — years are read digit by digit (2026 is 二〇二六年, èr líng èr liù nián, never "two thousand and twenty-six"). The guide to Chinese numbers and dates covers that, and the Number & Date Quiz drills it.

The traditional name of a year is a pair: one of ten heavenly stems (天干, tiāngān) and one of twelve earthly branches (地支, dìzhī). The two lists advance together, one step each per year, so a combination repeats only every 60 years — the 干支 (gānzhī) cycle. 2024 was 甲辰; the previous 甲辰 was 1964 and the next is 2084. Sixty years therefore completes one full turn of the cycle, which is why that anniversary carries such weight.

When is Chinese New Year 2027?

Chinese New Year 2027 falls on February 6, 2027, opening the 丁未 (dīng wèi) year of the sexagenary cycle. Chinese New Year is the first day of the first lunar month (正月初一), so it moves between 21 January and 21 February.

Why does Chinese New Year fall on a different date every year?

Because the calendar is lunisolar. Its months follow the moon — each begins on a new moon and runs 29 or 30 days — so twelve of them come to about 354 days, eleven short of the solar year. A whole extra month is inserted seven times every nineteen years to stop the calendar drifting through the seasons, and that correction is what moves Chinese New Year around, always within the 21 January – 21 February window.

What is a Chinese leap month (闰月)?

An extra thirteenth month added to keep the lunar year in step with the sun. It has no name of its own: it repeats the month before it with the prefix 闰 (rùn). 2023 had a 闰二月 and 2025 has a 闰六月. Which month is doubled depends on where the solar terms fall, so it follows no fixed rotation, and a leap year runs 383 or 384 days.

Does the lunar year start on 1 January?

No. The lunar year turns over at Chinese New Year, which falls between 21 January and 21 February, so a date in January or the first half of February still belongs to the previous lunar year — 9 February 2024 was lunar year 2023, and only 10 February 2024 opened lunar year 2024. The converter reads the lunar year off the calendar table rather than off the Western year, and handles that boundary correctly.

Why doesn't the converter flag Qingming (清明节)?

Because it is not a lunar date. Qingming is one of the 24 solar terms (节气), defined by the position of the sun rather than the phase of the moon — which is why it sits at 4 or 5 April every year while Mid-Autumn wanders across September and October. The same is true of the winter solstice (冬至). Solar terms cannot be derived from lunar months, so the converter does not name them rather than printing a date it would be guessing at.

How far back and forward does the converter go?

From 1901-02-19 to 2101-01-28 — lunar years 1901 to 2100. The Chinese calendar is astronomical rather than arithmetic: month lengths and leap months come from observed new moons and the sun's position, so there is no rule to extend past the published tables. Dates outside that range are refused rather than estimated, because a wrong lunar date looks exactly like a right one.

Is my date sent to a server?

No. The whole calendar table is loaded with the page and every conversion happens in your browser — instant, private, and free.