What’s your sign, and your animal?

Your star sign (or sun sign) comes from your birthday’s month and day: the part of the sky the sun was passing through. Pick your birthday above to see it, along with your Chinese zodiac animal, birthstone and birth flower.

The sun moves into the next sign on a slightly different day each year, so a birthday right on the edge can belong to either sign. The dates here are the ones most horoscopes use. For the exact answer you need your birth year, time and place, which is what a full birth chart works out.

The Chinese zodiac follows the lunar calendar, whose new year falls between January 21 and February 20. If you were born in January or early February, before Lunar New Year, you belong to the previous year’s animal. Pick your birthday above and we check the exact date.

Star signs come in four elements: Fire (Aries, Leo, Sagittarius), Earth (Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn), Air (Gemini, Libra, Aquarius) and Water (Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces). The Chinese zodiac has five, Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water, which change every two years, so each animal-and-element pair returns every 60 years.

The modern American list gives each month a main stone (a few months have more than one): garnet for January, amethyst, aquamarine, diamond, emerald, pearl, ruby, peridot, sapphire, opal, topaz and turquoise for December.