Open data
Chinese zodiac elements dataset, 1924–2043
A downloadable table of 120 year pillars — year, animal, the two stem-branch characters, and the element of the year stem. Generated from one engine, checked against seven known anchors, and free to reuse with attribution.
Version 1.0 · 120 rows · CC BY 4.0 · Updated November 2026
Download the data
Two files, same 120 rows. No account, no form, no tracking. Both are UTF-8 and both are generated by script rather than typed, so the table on the site and the file you download cannot quietly disagree.
Download CSV Download JSON Read the full chart on screen
CSV is 5 columns and about 3 KB. JSON adds the split stem and branch, the element's Chinese character and its URL slug, plus coverage, licence and anchor metadata.
What each row contains
The CSV header is year,animal,animal_hanzi,element,year_pillar. One row per calendar year, 1924 to 2043, in ascending order, with no gaps and no duplicate years.
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
year | Calendar year labelling the row |
animal / animal_hanzi | Zodiac animal in English and Chinese |
element | Five Elements phase of the year's heavenly stem |
year_pillar | The two sexagenary characters, stem then branch |
For example, the 1984 row reads:
1984,Rat,鼠,Wood,甲子
That is the start of the current sixty-year cycle, which is why 1984 turns up so often as a sanity check. The range ends in 2043, giving two complete cycles — every stem-branch pair appears exactly twice, so a consumer can verify the pattern without trusting the publisher.
How the rows were produced
Every row comes from the same calculation the free reading uses, run at local noon on 15 February of that year in Beijing. Fifteen February is deliberately chosen: the traditional year begins at 立春 (Lichun), around 4 February, and that date is safely past it in every year in this range. Sampling in January would have made some rows belong to the previous pillar.
The table is emitted by a generator, not maintained by hand. It refuses to write anything if any of seven anchors fail: 1984 甲子 Wood Rat, 1988 戊辰 Earth Dragon, 1990 庚午 Metal Horse, 2000 庚辰 Metal Dragon, 2024 甲辰 Wood Dragon, 2025 乙巳 Wood Snake, 2026 丙午 Fire Horse. All seven pass on this build, and the same check guards the JSON conversion.
One convention worth stating plainly, because it is the usual source of disagreement: the element here is the phase of the year's heavenly stem, not nayin (the melodic element). Many printed zodiac tables use nayin, which runs on a different thirty-year cycle. If your source says 1984 is Metal and this file says Wood, neither is a typo — they are different conventions. The stem phase is the one a Four Pillars chart reads.
Where this table stops
It covers one pillar out of four. A birth in January or the first days of February belongs to the previous row, and roughly one birth in twelve falls on that side of Lichun. There is no month, day or hour pillar here, and those three need an exact birth time, a birth place and a correction from clock time to true solar time. A year-only table is often presented as a complete chart; it is not one.
If the arithmetic behind the pillars is what you are checking rather than the pillars themselves, the benchmark publishes 30 reference birth moments with locked expected values, and the reference charts show worked examples.
Licence and how to cite it
Released under CC BY 4.0. Use it in a paper, a spreadsheet, an app or a commercial product; modify it; redistribute it. Credit WuWay and link the licence. A link back to this page is appreciated but is not a condition of use.
Plain text
WuWay (2026). Chinese zodiac year pillars and Five Elements, 1924-2043 [Data set]. https://getwuway.com/chinese-zodiac-elements-dataset
BibTeX
@misc{wuway2026zodiac,
title = {Chinese zodiac year pillars and Five Elements, 1924--2043},
author = {{WuWay}},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {\url{https://getwuway.com/chinese-zodiac-elements-dataset}},
note = {Dataset, CC BY 4.0}
}
There is no DOI and no archive deposit. If your work needs a fixed reference, keep a local copy of the CSV alongside it.
Look up a year
Enter any year in the covered range. The result has a permanent URL, so you can link straight to one row.
Questions
Is this the same as a Chinese zodiac animal table?
It contains the animal, but adds the two-character year pillar and the Five Elements phase of the year's heavenly stem. A plain animal table repeats every twelve years; this one repeats every sixty.
Why does the element here disagree with another chart I found?
Most published tables assign the element by nayin (melodic element), which follows a different thirty-year cycle. This dataset uses the phase of the year's heavenly stem, which is what a Four Pillars chart reads. Both are internally consistent; they answer different questions.
Can I use this in a paper, an app, or a commercial project?
Yes. The dataset is released under CC BY 4.0. Reuse and modification are allowed, including commercially, as long as you credit WuWay and link the licence. A link back to this page is appreciated but is not a condition.
What about a birth in January or early February?
Use the previous row. The BaZi year changes at Lichun, around 4 February, not on 1 January or at Chinese New Year. Roughly one birth in twelve falls before Lichun, so this is the single most common lookup error.
Which years are covered, and can I get more?
1924 through 2043 inclusive: 120 rows, two complete sexagenary cycles. The generator is parameterised, so a wider range is possible; the CSV and JSON on this page are the frozen, versioned copy.
Does the file contain month, day and hour pillars?
No. A year pillar alone is not a Four Pillars chart. The other three need an exact birth time, a birth place and a true-solar-time correction; year-only tables are frequently mistaken for a full chart.
Is there a DOI or a formal archive?
No. There is no DOI and no repository deposit. Cite the canonical URL on this page, and keep a local copy of the CSV if your work needs a fixed reference.
Related: the full chart on screen · Wood · Fire · Earth · Metal · Water · benchmark