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Korean Saju vs. Chinese BaZi vs. Western Astrology

By Data Saju · Published October 23, 2026

Korean saju and Chinese BaZi are the same system: both build a Four Pillars chart from the year, month, day and hour of birth, and they mostly differ in vocabulary and calculator settings. Western astrology is a separate tool, but the two share the sun: a BaZi month always begins exactly 15° into a sun sign, so in 2026 every sign was split between two BaZi months, in pieces of 14.7 to 15.7 days. Below you will find a Korean–pinyin lookup, the 2026 dates side by side, and two real birthdays read all three ways.

Are Korean saju and Chinese BaZi the same thing?

Yes. Saju (사주, 四柱) is the Korean name and means "four pillars." BaZi (八字) is the Mandarin name and means "eight characters." They describe one chart: four pillars (year, month, day, hour) with two characters each, a heavenly stem and an earthly branch, for eight characters in all. Koreans often say both together as saju palja (사주팔자).

The ten stems, twelve branches, five elements and the ten roles (Ten Gods) are shared. What changes is how the characters are read aloud and a few calculator settings, covered below. If you already know BaZi, you already know how to read a saju chart.

Korean to pinyin lookup: the ten stems and twelve branches

Korean sources spell the same characters with Korean pronunciations, which is the main reason a saju article can look unfamiliar to a BaZi reader. Here is the translation table:

For what each character means, see the ten heavenly stems and the twelve earthly branches.

How are BaZi and Western astrology connected?

Both start from the sun's apparent path through the sky, but they cut it differently. A Western sun sign changes every 30° of the sun's longitude, starting at 0° (the March equinox, when the sun enters Aries). A BaZi month changes at the 12 "solar terms," which start at 315° (Lichun) and repeat every 30°. Because 315° is halfway through the 300°–330° sign, every BaZi month begins 15° into a sun sign, about 15 days after the sign changes.

This table shows 2026, computed from the sun's position (US Eastern Standard Time, UTC−5; add an hour for daylight saving):

So your sun sign tells you roughly where the sun was, but not your BaZi month. A Leo born in the first half of the sign, for example, falls in the Wei (Goat) month (the sign opens on July 22, 2:12 PM), and a Leo born later falls in the Shen (Monkey) month, which begins on August 7, 6:42 AM. Only the sun is shared: BaZi has no planets or rising sign, and Western astrology has no day or hour stem-branch cycle.

One birthday, three readings

Here are two birthdays read all three ways. The charts assume a noon birth in New York, and the BaZi columns follow the same engine as the rest of this site.

The first birthday gets three different answers for "which year am I?": it is Aquarius in the Western system, the Horse by the Lunar New Year calendar, and Snake (Earth) in BaZi, because the BaZi year starts at Lichun in early February, after this date. The second birthday sits well inside every system's year, so the two Chinese calendars agree on the Horse.

Why does my Chinese zodiac animal depend on the source?

There are two ways to start a "Chinese year." Popular zodiac charts use Lunar New Year, which falls between late January and mid-February. BaZi uses Lichun, the start of spring, around February 3 or 4. Between those two dates the answers differ. Across 1980–2009 they were on average 7.6 days apart: the same day in 1992 and up to 16 days in 1985 (February 20 vs. February 4). Over those 30 years, about 2.1% of all birthdays got a different animal depending on which rule was used.

If you were born in January or February, check both dates. For the element side of the same question, see what element am I.

Why do two saju or BaZi calculators give different charts?

Because the same four-pillar method has a few settings that calculators set differently. Two matter most, and both can be switched in this site's engine:

• Clock time or solar time. Korea's clock follows the 135°E meridian, but Seoul sits near 127°E, so the sun is about 32 minutes behind the clock. This site applies that correction by default. We compared it with using the clock as is for every minute of the day in Seoul (51,840 test times): the hour pillar changed for 27.5% of birth minutes. In Seoul, anyone born in the first half hour after 1:00, 3:00, 5:00 and so on by the clock can get a different hour pillar.
• The 11 PM hour. Some calculators start the new day at 11 PM, and others wait until midnight. That choice changes the day pillar for 4.2% of birth times, the hour between 11 PM and midnight.

Neither setting belongs to one country, so check which ones a tool uses before you compare charts. For a related setting, see daylight saving time and your BaZi hour.

Which one should I use?

They answer different questions. Western astrology uses the positions of the sun, moon and planets and your rising sign. A BaZi chart uses only the calendar: the sun's position (through solar terms) and the 60-day and 12-double-hour cycles, so it needs your date and time but no planetary data. You can use both for fun; just do not mix their year and month boundaries. For a worked example of reading a BaZi chart, see how to read a BaZi chart.

Frequently asked questions

Is Korean saju the same as Chinese BaZi? Yes. Both are the Four Pillars system with the same stems, branches and elements. Saju means "four pillars" and BaZi means "eight characters"; the names differ, and so do some calculator settings.

Is my sun sign related to my BaZi month? Both come from the sun, but they change at different points. A BaZi month begins 15° into a sun sign, about 14.7–15.7 days after the sign changes (2026), so each sun sign covers parts of two BaZi months.

What is my Chinese zodiac animal if I was born in January or February? It depends on the rule. By Lunar New Year, it changes on that date; in BaZi, it changes at Lichun (about February 3–4). Between the two dates, the answers differ, which affected about 2.1% of birthdays in 1980–2009.

Do I need my birth time? A BaZi chart has four pillars, and the hour pillar needs your birth time. Without it, you still get the year, month and day pillars. A sun sign needs only the date, except on the day the sign changes.

Why does my chart differ between websites? Usually because of settings: whether the clock is corrected to solar time (hour pillar changes for 27.5% of birth minutes in our Seoul test) and when the day changes around 11 PM (4.2% of birth times). A birth within hours of a solar term can land in different months depending on the time zone a tool assumes.

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