2013 Chinese Zodiac Year: Water Snake Dates and Birth Lookup

By Astrolivo editorial team

In the Chinese lunisolar calendar convention used on this site, 2013 is the Year of the Water Snake (Gui-si), running inclusively from February 10, 2013 through January 30, 2014. Because the 2013 Lunar New Year began on February 10, anyone born between January 1, 2013 and February 9, 2013 falls under the preceding Dragon year rather than the Snake year.

2013 Birth-Date Lookup Table

Match your exact Gregorian birth date to the inclusive date ranges below:

Why Birth Year Alone Is Not Enough

Because the Chinese calendar is lunisolar—combining lunar month cycles with the solar year—Lunar New Year shifts each year between late January and mid-February on the Gregorian calendar. Relying on the Gregorian year "2013" alone misidentifies births in January and early February.

Consider a hypothetical comparison between two early-2013 birth dates:

• Hypothetical birth on February 2, 2013: Because this date is before the February 10 Lunar New Year, the birth belongs to the final days of the Dragon year.
• Hypothetical birth on February 10, 2013: Because this date is Lunar New Year's Day, the birth falls on the first day of the Water Snake year.

How the Water Snake (Gui-si) Name Works

Traditional Chinese calendar reckoning pairs Ten Heavenly Stems (Jia, Yi, Bing, Ding, Wu, Ji, Geng, Xin, Ren, Gui) with Twelve Earthly Branches (the twelve zodiac animals) in a 60-year cycle anchored in modern tables at 1984 (Jia-zi Rat). For the lunar year starting February 10, 2013, the stem-branch designation is *Gui-si*:

• *Gui* is the tenth Heavenly Stem, which corresponds in traditional five-phase (wuxing) mapping to Water.
• *Si* is the Earthly Branch corresponding to the Snake.

Although the Snake recurs every 12 years, its paired stem rotates through the five elements. Not every Snake year is a Water Snake; the specific Gui-si combination repeats only once every 60 years.

How This Differs from Western Sun Signs and Four Pillars (BaZi)

• Western Sun signs: Tropical Western astrology divides the solar year into 12 roughly month-long signs based on the Sun's ecliptic position. A Chinese zodiac animal year spans a full lunisolar year.
• Lunar New Year vs. Four Pillars (BaZi): This lookup page uses the civil Lunar New Year boundary. Traditional Four Pillars (BaZi) astrology transitions the year pillar at the solar term Li Chun (start of spring, around early February) and calculates four pillars for the birth year, month, day, and hour. This table is a civil Lunar New Year reference, not a Four Pillars chart.

For an overview of all twelve signs and cycle mechanics, visit the Chinese Zodiac hub or read the profile for the Snake.

Sources and Reference Basis

Inclusive date boundaries and the Gui-si header are drawn from the official Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) Gregorian-Lunar Calendar Conversion Tables for 2013 and 2014 and the HKO Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches documentation. The five-phase stem correspondence (Gui = Water) follows standard wuxing mapping documented in Yoo & Yoon (2019, DOI: 10.14369/jkmc.2019.32.2.017). Historical and calendar background follows reference articles from the Victoria and Albert Museum and Royal Museums Greenwich. Astrological and zodiac traditions are symbolic cultural systems, not scientifically validated predictors of personality or life events.