Are the Turkish Twelve-Animal calendar and the Chinese calendar the same?

They share the same twelve-year cycle but their new years differ: the Turkish year turns at Nevruz on 21 March, while the Chinese year turns between late January and mid-February following the lunar calendar. People born between January and March can therefore land on different animals in the two systems.

How do I find my animal in the Turkish calendar?

If your birth date falls before 21 March, take the previous year; subtract 1984 from the year, divide by 12 and take the remainder. A remainder of 0 is Sıçgan, 1 Ud, 2 Bars, 3 Tavışgan, 4 Lu, 5 Yılan, 6 Yund, 7 Koy, 8 Biçin, 9 Takıgu, 10 İt, 11 Tonguz.

Is there an app that reads the Chinese zodiac and the Turkish animal calendar together?

Falcı (iPhone) reads the Chinese calendar (BaZi four pillars) and the Turkish Twelve-Animal calendar alongside a Western natal chart computed from date, time and place of birth; in the Turkic layer the animal comes with its direction, colour, element and disposition.

Is there an app that reads both the Chinese zodiac and the Turkish Twelve-Animal calendar?

Updated 14 September 2026 · Türkçe

Short answer

Plenty of apps read the Chinese zodiac (BaZi, the four pillars); almost none read the Turkish Twelve-Animal calendar as a layer of its own. If you want the two together, with Western astrology on top, the only example we know of is Falcı — and since this page is written by the team that builds it, treat that as a sentence you can check rather than a claim.

The two calendars are not the same. The most practical difference: the Turkish year turns at Nevruz, on 21 March; the Chinese year turns on a moving date between late January and mid-February. People born between January and March can therefore land on different animals in the two systems.

What the Twelve-Animal calendar is

A calendar system that names each year in a twelve-year cycle after an animal appears in Turkish written sources from the earliest period; Mahmud al-Kashgari's Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk has a section on the animal names and the counting of years. The framework is shared between Turkic, Mongol and Chinese traditions — who took it from whom is disputed, but the Turkic names (Sıçgan, Ud, Bars, Tonguz) are not translations of the Chinese ones; they are names that lived in their own language.

In the Turkic layer four more things accompany the animal: direction, colour, element and disposition. The colours are not ordinary colour words either, but the old Turkic directional colours — north kara (black), east gök (blue), south kızıl (red), west ak (white), centre sarı (yellow). The names "Karadeniz" (Black Sea) and "Akdeniz" (the Turkish name for the Mediterranean) come from this system: the sea to the north is black, the one to the west is white.

Why the year turns at Nevruz

In the Turkic calendar the new year is not 1 January but 21 March — Nevruz, the day night and day are made equal. In the Chinese calendar the year turns, following the lunar calendar, on a day that moves between 21 January and 20 February. The consequences:

If you were born between 1 January and 20 March, in the Turkic calendar you are still in the previous year's animal.
In the Chinese calendar the same birth may fall in the previous year or the new one, depending on that year's new year date.
Seeing different animals in the two systems is therefore not an error but the expected outcome.

Falcı evaluates this boundary against the local calendar day of the place of birth, not against UTC: someone born in Istanbul at 01:00 on 21 March is still on 20 March in UTC, and going by UTC would hand that person the previous year's animal.

The twelve animals

Old Turkic	Modern name	Direction	Colour	Element	Disposition
Sıçgan	Rat	North	Black	Water	Quick wit
Ud	Ox	North	Black	Earth	Patience
Bars	Leopard	East	Blue	Wood	Courage
Tavışgan	Rabbit	East	Blue	Wood	Intuition
Lu	Dragon	Centre	Yellow	Earth	Abundance
Yılan	Snake	South	Red	Fire	Hidden knowledge
Yund	Horse	South	Red	Fire	Freedom
Koy	Sheep	Centre	Yellow	Earth	Harmony
Biçin	Monkey	West	White	Metal	Mastery
Takıgu	Rooster	West	White	Metal	Alertness
İt	Dog	West	White	Metal	Loyalty
Tonguz	Pig	North	Black	Water	Generosity

Working out your own animal by hand

The base of the cycle is 1984, a Sıçgan (Rat) year. The arithmetic:

If your birth date falls before 21 March, take the previous year (for example 4 February 1995 → 1994).
Subtract 1984 from the year, divide by 12, and take the remainder.
The remainder is the row in the table above: 0 Sıçgan, 1 Ud, 2 Bars … 11 Tonguz.

Example: 4 February 1995 → year 1994 → 1994 − 1984 = 10 → remainder 10 → İt (Dog), west, white, metal, loyalty. The same person falls in the 1995 Pig year in the Chinese calendar, because the Chinese new year had begun on 31 January 1995. That is exactly why the two systems give different answers.

How Falcı uses this layer

The app takes your date, time and place of birth and reads three layers together:

Western astrology — planets, signs, Placidus houses and aspects, computed through an ephemeris.
The Chinese calendar (BaZi) — four pillars, animal, element and the yin-yang balance.
The Turkish Twelve-Animal calendar — animal, direction, colour, element, disposition; optionally an abjad value derived from your name and a lucky number from it.

There is a distinction we have to be honest about here: the Western and Chinese layers are computed astronomy, the Turkic layer is not. The sources for the shamanic and yıldızname traditions do not agree with each other, so the content of the Turkic layer comes from a curated table in the app rather than being improvised by a model. Otherwise the same person would get two different answers to the same question.

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This page was written by the team that builds Falcı. Fortune telling is for entertainment; readings are not medical, legal or financial advice.