Chinese Zodiac Years: Full Chart 1924–2044

By Mithila Labs

The New Year dates guide answers when a lunar year starts. This one answers a different question: given a birth year, what animal-element combination goes with it, and who else out there shares it exactly.

The pattern behind the table

Follow any single animal down its column and the element cycles Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water — two consecutive occurrences per element before it hands off. Not a coincidence: it's a 12-year animal cycle running alongside a 10-year element cycle, and the two only fully realign every 60 years. Spot a Wood Rat and you know the next Rat, twelve years on, is Fire, then Earth, Metal, Water, before Wood comes back around five Rat-occurrences later.

Find your generational match

Because a full animal-element combination only repeats every 60 years, whoever last shared your exact pairing is roughly two generations older than you — a grandparent's cohort, not a parent's. The table below adds that year directly: find your birth year, and the last column shows the most recent earlier year with the identical animal and element, wherever it falls within this chart's own 1924–2044 range.

Born in January or early February? A birthday before that year's Chinese New Year date still belongs to the row above. For the personality profile behind any pairing here, open the matching born-in-year page, or browse the twelve base sign profiles for the animal-only version.