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Saju guide

The Korean Zodiac (Tti) and Why the Year Changes at Ipchun

Your Korean zodiac animal, or tti, comes from the year pillar of saju. Learn the twelve animals and why the saju year begins at Ipchun, not January 1.

"What's your tti?" is a question many Koreans hear when they meet someone new. Tti (띠) means the animal attached to your birth year, and asking about it is a gentle, indirect way of placing someone in a generation. The animals are the same twelve used in China and much of East Asia, but the way saju decides which animal is yours has a detail that surprises many people: the year does not change on January 1, and in saju it does not change on Lunar New Year either.

The twelve animals in order

The cycle runs Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig, then starts again. In Korean they are jwi, so, horangi, tokki, yong, baem, mal, yang, wonsungi, dak, gae and dwaeji. The Korean name yang means sheep (a goat is yeomso), but the Chinese character for the animal, 羊, covers both sheep and goats, which is why English sources are split between Goat and Sheep.

Each animal is the friendly name for one of the twelve earthly branches, or jiji, the lower characters in a saju chart. Rat is ja, Ox is chuk, Tiger is in, Rabbit is myo, Dragon is jin, Snake is sa, Horse is o, Goat is mi, Monkey is sin, Rooster is yu, Dog is sul and Pig is hae. Your tti is simply the branch of your year pillar spoken as an animal.

A popular folk tale explains the order with a race in which the Rat rides on the Ox's back and leaps ahead at the finish. The story varies from place to place. Saju texts describe the order differently, as a cycle of time that begins with the Rat at the deepest point of night and winter, where a new rising energy is said to start.

Sixty years, not twelve

The year animal is only half of a year's name. Each year also has a heavenly stem, one of ten, and stems and branches turn together like two interlocking wheels. Their combinations repeat every sixty years, a cycle called the sexagenary cycle, or yuksip gapja, "the sixty gapja."

Because each stem belongs to one of the five elements, every year has both an element and an animal. 2026 is Byeongo (丙午), a Fire Horse year, sometimes called the red horse year since red is the color of Fire. 2027 is Jeongmi, a Fire Goat year, or red sheep year in Korean. 2028 is Musin, an Earth Monkey year. A Fire Horse year therefore returns only once every sixty years, while a plain Horse year comes around every twelve.

Ipchun, the real turning point

Saju follows the solar terms, or jeolgi, twenty-four markers that divide the sun's yearly path into equal steps. Ipchun (立春), meaning "the beginning of spring," is traditionally counted as the first of them. It falls around February 4 each year, sometimes a day earlier or later, at the moment the sun reaches a fixed point on its apparent path.

In saju, the new year pillar begins at Ipchun. Everything before that moment still belongs to the previous year. Someone born on January 20, 2026 has a year pillar from 2025, which was a Snake year, and is therefore a Snake in saju terms. Someone born on February 10, 2026 is a Horse. For a birth on Ipchun day itself, the hour decides; Hongsil places the year pillar by the exact moment of the term, so entering a birth time settles it.

Why not Lunar New Year?

Seollal, the Korean Lunar New Year, is the big family holiday, and many casual zodiac charts switch animals on that date. It moves around on the solar calendar because it follows the moon, landing anywhere from late January to about February 20.

Saju uses the solar terms instead because the system is built around the seasons, and seasons follow the sun. The month pillars change at solar terms too, so using Ipchun for the year keeps the whole chart on one consistent clock. This is why a person born between Seollal and Ipchun, or between Ipchun and Seollal in years where Seollal comes later, may find that a holiday-based chart and a saju chart give them different animals. Neither is a mistake; they simply follow different conventions.

Animals in the other pillars

The year is not the only place animals appear. Every pillar in a saju chart has a branch, so you also have a month animal, a day animal and an hour animal. Many readers place more weight on the day animal than the year animal when describing personality and close relationships, because the day pillar is read as the self. Your tti is a public, generational label, while the day branch is treated as something more personal.

Traits and their limits

Each animal comes with familiar traits: the hardworking Ox, the bold Tiger, the gentle Rabbit, the social Rooster and so on. These are cultural associations, useful for small talk and storytelling. They are handed to everyone born in the same twelve-month span, so they can only ever be broad. A saju reading uses the year animal as one character out of eight, alongside the season of birth, the day of birth and the balance of elements.

FAQ

I was born in late January. Which animal am I?

In saju, you belong to the previous year's animal, because the year changes at Ipchun around February 4. If you were born on February 3, 4 or 5, the exact time matters, since Ipchun can fall on any of those days and at any hour.

Is the Korean zodiac different from the Chinese zodiac?

The twelve animals and the sixty-year cycle are shared. Korean usage has its own names for the animals and its own customs, such as the habit of asking someone's tti to work out relative age. The stems, branches and solar terms that saju calculates with are the same ones behind Chinese four-pillar reading.

My day pillar has an animal too. Is that my real sign?

Your sign, the tti, is the year animal, and it is the one people mean in conversation. The day animal is the branch of your day pillar. Many readers treat it as the more personal of the two, but it does not replace the tti when someone asks what year you were born.

Related

Part of the dotorium saju guide. Saju readings are for fun and reflection, not for making decisions.