The chinese calendar is a 'lunisolar' calendar, it refers to the moon and sun positions. It leans on the real positions and not on estimations.

This calendar is composed of cycles that chinese neither name nor count. They only indicate the position in the current cycle.

A cycle counts 60 chinese years, the name of each year is the result of 2 concurrent cycles of 10 and 12 values. The first one representing the celestian stemm (10 values), the second the terrestrial branch (12 values). The famous animals of the chinese zodiac are the seconds, the firsts corresponding more or less to the 5 elements alternately associated to the Yin and the Yang.

A year is composed of 12 or 13 months, the 13th month may be anywhere in the year, it has the same name than the month before it.

At last, and to cut a long story short, the chinese calendar indicates some particular positions of the sun : the 24 solar terms (in chinese jie qi) which are divided in 12 major solar terms (zhong qi) and 12 minor solar terms (jie qi as well) which ponctuate their year and indicate beneficial or not solar position in the sky.


©Alain Opériol - 1991-2010 (www.encinaal.fr)