Chinese Almanac
What the traditional almanac says for any given day: the lunar date and its stems and branches, the day officer, the lunar mansion, auspicious and inauspicious spirits, directions and the fortune of each double hour.
- Almanac 2026Every day of 2026. Open a date for its activities, stems and branches, hours and clashes.
- Almanac 2027Every day of 2027. Open a date for its activities, stems and branches, hours and clashes.
How the daily activities are decided
What a day favours is derived, not listed. First come the stems and branches of the day; from those follows the day officer, one of the twelve — Establish, Remove, Full, Balance, Settle, Hold, Break, Danger, Success, Collect, Open, Close — each with its own province. The auspicious and inauspicious spirits attending that day are then weighed against it, and only then do the two lists appear.
The same entry therefore rests on a different derivation on every date. The Xieji Bianfang Shu, compiled under imperial commission in the Qianlong reign, collated the older date-selection traditions into one system; almanacs have largely followed it since, and so does this one.
Day officers and attending spirits
The twelve day officers rotate daily in step with the solar terms and largely decide whether a day favours action or stillness: Establish begins things, Break dissolves them, Success completes them, Close draws them to an end.
The attending spirit is a separate cycle. Six of them — Azure Dragon, Bright Hall, Golden Chest, Heavenly Virtue, Jade Hall and Controller of Fate — belong to the Yellow Path and mark smoother days; the other six belong to the Black Path. The two cycles read together are what produce the verdict printed in an almanac.
Why the hours matter
Once the day is chosen there is still the hour. Each of the double hours has its own attending spirit, so a single day holds both favourable and unfavourable stretches. The old maxim runs that choosing the hour matters more than choosing the day.
The Zi hour straddles midnight and is split in two: the early Zi hour belongs to the day itself, while the late Zi hour already carries the next day’s stem. The table below therefore has thirteen rows rather than twelve.