The twelve signs and their dates
| Sign | Dates | Element | Modality |
|---|---|---|---|
| ♈ Aries | 21 Mar – 19 Apr | Fire | Cardinal |
| ♉ Taurus | 20 Apr – 20 May | Earth | Fixed |
| ♊ Gemini | 21 May – 20 Jun | Air | Mutable |
| ♋ Cancer | 21 Jun – 22 Jul | Water | Cardinal |
| ♌ Leo | 23 Jul – 22 Aug | Fire | Fixed |
| ♍ Virgo | 23 Aug – 22 Sep | Earth | Mutable |
| ♎ Libra | 23 Sep – 22 Oct | Air | Cardinal |
| ♏ Scorpio | 23 Oct – 21 Nov | Water | Fixed |
| ♐ Sagittarius | 22 Nov – 21 Dec | Fire | Mutable |
| ♑ Capricorn | 22 Dec – 19 Jan | Earth | Cardinal |
| ♒ Aquarius | 20 Jan – 18 Feb | Air | Fixed |
| ♓ Pisces | 19 Feb – 20 Mar | Water | Mutable |
Cusp dates shift by a day depending on the year, because the sun's entry into each sign is an astronomical event that does not respect the calendar. Anyone born within a day of a boundary should check the exact time and location.
What the sky is actually doing
Here is the part most horoscope columns leave out. The zodiac was fixed in Babylon roughly 2,500 years ago, when the constellations genuinely did line up with those dates. Since then, the Earth's axis has been slowly wobbling — a 26,000-year cycle called the precession of the equinoxes.
The result is that the signs have drifted by about one full sign. If you are told you are a Leo, the sun was most likely in Cancer at your birth. Western astrology uses the tropical zodiac, which is anchored to the seasons rather than the stars, so it simply carried on with the old dates.
There is also a thirteenth constellation, Ophiuchus, which the sun passes through from about 29 November to 17 December. It was excluded because twelve divides the year neatly and thirteen does not.
The Chinese zodiac works differently
The Chinese zodiac assigns an animal to each year in a twelve-year cycle, combined with one of five elements on a ten-year cycle — giving a full cycle of sixty years. Your birth year determines the pair.
One important caveat this calculator simplifies: the Chinese year begins at Lunar New Year, which falls between 21 January and 20 February. If you were born in January or early February, your animal is the previous year's. Check the exact Lunar New Year date for your birth year.
Repeated controlled studies have found no evidence that birth date predicts personality or life outcomes. Astrology is a rich cultural and symbolic tradition and an excellent conversation starter — it is not a predictive system, and we would rather say so than pretend.