Is the zodiac based on beginning of spring or New Year's Eve?

This is controversial in China, but most people agree to start on the first day of the new year.

1. Lunar calendar algorithm: The Year of the Sheep begins in February of 19.

Taking New Year's Eve as the dividing point, that is, from the beginning of the Lunar New Year (the first day of the first lunar month), the method of calculating the zodiac appeared late, and the earliest record appeared in the Northern Song Dynasty. Now many people agree with this. Folklore experts believe that the zodiac should not be calculated according to the 24 solar terms. After all, the Spring Festival is the beginning of the Lunar New Year, and it is also the beginning of the Lunar New Year, so the zodiac naturally starts from the first day of the first month.

Wang Sichao, a researcher at the Purple Mountain Observatory in Nanjing, Chinese Academy of Sciences, also believes that the Year of the Sheep officially starts from February 19 and ends on February 7/20 16, with 354 days.

2. Chronology of dry support: It should be counted from beginning of spring on February 4th.

Compared with folklore experts and Wang Sichao, CoCo Lee, secretary general of Jiangsu Astronomical Society, thinks that the Year of the Sheep should start in beginning of spring. "From now on, it should be the Year of the Sheep, and the baby sheep will be born." According to reports, the method of taking beginning of spring as the standard of the zodiac began in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties. The current Chinese zodiac calendar, traditional numerology, divination and other folklore all take "beginning of spring" as the basis for calculating the Chinese zodiac.

Extended data:

The stars on the zodiac say:

The ancients divided the stars near the ecliptic and equator into "28 stars". Twenty-eight nights also represent an animal In ancient times, Sunday was divided into twelve parts, represented by twelve branches. Twelve branches belonged to the zodiac, and the zodiac had a corresponding relationship with twenty-eight stars.

Wang Chang, a great scholar in the Ming Dynasty, believed that 28 species of animals belonged to 28 stars and were unified by 7 aliens, forming a pattern of "mother bat, imaginary sun mouse, dangerous moon swallow and child". In Li Changqing's Song Xia Guan Yu Yan in the Qing Dynasty, he thought that the 28-lodging animals "even if the first 12 genera were doubled", "were attached to Kang Jinlong, Chen Guan and Jiao Mujiao.

"Jiao, Long Ye" reflects the gathering of 28 kinds of starry animals based on the zodiac. But it is inevitable that there will be collateral encounters, and the records of the 28 constellations are later than the zodiac.

People's Daily Online-Zodiac Debate: Is the Zodiac Based on "beginning of spring" or Spring Festival?

Baidu Encyclopedia-Zodiac (China Folk Culture)