Dates of Chinese Lunar & Leap Months

The Chinese Lunar Calendar is the cycle of the Moon. The new moon date is the first day of a lunar month. The cycle of the Moon is shorter than the cycle of the Sun. The cycle of the Moon is about 29.53 days. One year has about 365.2425 days. Thus, one year has about 12.3685 lunar months. In order to match the solar calendar, the Chinese Lunar calendar needs to add Intercalary Month (Leap Month ) into the calendar cycle. It needs 7 lunar leap months in 19 solar years.

Since the Lunar Leap Month involves the cycle of the Sun, the Chinese Lunar Calendar actually is the combination of the Moon and Sun calendar. How to determine the Leap Months is very complicated. The detail is in the Theory of the Chinese Lunar Calendar page.

The following tool will list out the Lunar Months by giving a solar year. It will include the Leap Month if it is there in the given year.

From the theory of the Chinese Lunar Calendar, we know that the different time zones might have different leap month assignments. Also, the astronomical calendar and civil calendar have different lunar month patterns. The astronomical calendar has more accurate Moon and Sun time. But current Chinese Farmer's Almanac and official Chinese Lunar Calendar use the Chinese Civil Calendar. Therefore, the China time zone has the option to use the Civil Calendar.

Select time zone
Press Submit button to list the first days of the Chinese Lunar Months
Find time zone, click here
The current China time zone uses China Civil Calendar (east longitude 120 degrees)