The 24 Solar Terms, Explained
The 24 solar terms divide the sun's path into twenty-four points, roughly fifteen days apart, marking the turning of the agricultural year.
Updated 2026-11-01
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The solar terms — 节气, jié qì — are often mistaken for a lunar calendar. They are the opposite: each one marks a fixed position of the sun along the ecliptic, fifteen degrees from the last.
That is why their Gregorian dates barely move. Beginning of Spring falls on 3–5 February almost every year, and the Winter Solstice on 21–23 December. Compare that with Chinese New Year, which can land anywhere between 21 January and 20 February.
Twenty-four names, four seasons
They run in four groups of six, beginning with 立春 (Beginning of Spring) and ending with 大寒 (Major Cold). Each season opens with a 立 — the character means "to stand up", the point where the season is established rather than at its peak.
The names are descriptive rather than abstract. Some mark temperature (小暑 minor heat, 大寒 major cold), some mark water (雨水 rain water, 霜降 frost's descent), some mark what the crops are doing (芒种 grain in ear, 小满 grain buds).
Two of them are also the only days in the Chinese year when day and night are exactly equal: 春分 and 秋分, the equinoxes.
| Season | Terms |
|---|---|
| Spring | 立春 · 雨水 · 惊蛰 · 春分 · 清明 · 谷雨 |
| Summer | 立夏 · 小满 · 芒种 · 夏至 · 小暑 · 大暑 |
| Autumn | 立秋 · 处暑 · 白露 · 秋分 · 寒露 · 霜降 |
| Winter | 立冬 · 小雪 · 大雪 · 冬至 · 小寒 · 大寒 |
They are older than they look
The system was standardised over two thousand years ago and used to schedule planting, harvest, festivals and even medicine. It spread across East Asia and shaped calendars in Japan, Korea and Vietnam.
In 2016 UNESCO added the twenty-four solar terms to its list of intangible cultural heritage. In China they still structure everyday speech: people say "it's 霜降 now" the way English speakers say "it's late October".
Each term also carries three pentads (候) — five-day divisions describing what to look for. Beginning of Spring's first pentad is "the east wind thaws the ice". It is a very old way of writing a weather report.
How to actually use them
The practical use is timing. If you are planning something seasonal — moving house, starting a project, eating properly — the solar terms give you a two-week resolution that the months do not.
They also explain a lot of Chinese cultural references that otherwise seem arbitrary: why certain foods appear in certain weeks, why a festival is where it is, why the weather in a poem is doing what it is doing.
Our almanac shows the current term alongside the lunar date, the day's stem and branch, and what is traditionally suitable or to be avoided that day.