Lunar Calendar vs Solar Calendar in China

A visitor notices it quickly: the date on a phone says one thing, the lunar date on a calendar says another, and people switch between them without thinking.

The two are not rivals and one is not replacing the other. They answer different questions. One tracks the sun, one tracks the moon, and the Chinese calendar deliberately tries to track both.

Three kinds of calendar

A solar calendar (Gregorian) divides the year by the earth's orbit: 365 days, twelve months that no longer correspond to any moon. Its months are administrative, not astronomical.

A lunar calendar counts new moons: months of 29 or 30 days, twelve of them coming to about 354 days — eleven short of a solar year.

A lunisolar calendar, which is what the Chinese one is, counts moons but inserts a leap month every two or three years so that the year stays anchored to the seasons.

Why that matters for the new year

Because the new year is the first day of the first lunar month, it drifts about eleven days earlier each year and then jumps back a month when a leap month is inserted.

The result is the familiar band: Chinese New Year always falls between 21 January and 20 February. In 2026 it is 17 February; in 2027 it is 6 February; in 2028 it is 26 January.

The solar terms are not lunar

The most common confusion is assuming the 24 solar terms are part of the lunar calendar. They are the opposite: each marks fifteen degrees of the sun's path, so their Gregorian dates barely move. Beginning of Spring lands on 3–5 February almost every year.

That is why an almanac can show both at once: a lunar date, a solar date, and a solar term, all for the same day, all correct.

Which date is your birthday

If someone gives you a lunar birthday, the Gregorian date changes every year. That is why older relatives often remember the lunar one and younger people the Gregorian one, and why the two never line up except by accident.

Our almanac converts between them and shows the current solar term and the day's stem and branch — useful when you need to know which calendar a date belongs to.