Korean Zodiac Animals (Tti) and Saju: What Your Animal Year Actually Is
By Saju Unni · Updated August 10, 2026 · 5 min read
Your Korean zodiac animal — your tti (띠) — is the animal attached to your birth year's earthly branch. In saju it is genuinely part of your chart: the year branch. It is also exactly one character out of eight.
What the Korean zodiac (띠) is
Tti names each of the 12 earthly branches (지지, 地支) with an animal, and the branch governing your birth year becomes "your animal" — the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture defines it in exactly those terms. Branches are calendar units; the animals are labels on top.
| Animal | Korean | Branch |
|---|---|---|
| Rat | 쥐띠 | 자 · 子 |
| Ox | 소띠 | 축 · 丑 |
| Tiger | 호랑이띠 | 인 · 寅 |
| Rabbit | 토끼띠 | 묘 · 卯 |
| Dragon | 용띠 | 진 · 辰 |
| Snake | 뱀띠 | 사 · 巳 |
| Horse | 말띠 | 오 · 午 |
| Goat | 양띠 | 미 · 未 |
| Monkey | 원숭이띠 | 신 · 申 |
| Rooster | 닭띠 | 유 · 酉 |
| Dog | 개띠 | 술 · 戌 |
| Pig | 돼지띠 | 해 · 亥 |
Each animal also recurs in five element flavors: 12 branches × 5 elements = the 60-year gapja cycle. A Fire Horse and an Earth Horse are both Horses.
The saju year turns at Ipchun (입춘), not January 1
The four-pillars year boundary is ipchun (입춘, 立春, "start of spring"), the first of the 24 solar terms, landing around February 3–5. A January birth carries the previous animal, whatever the Gregorian year says.
Lunar New Year (설날) is a different date and a different rule. Casual Korean talk often flips the animal at 설날; the chart does not, and the two can sit weeks apart — exactly where pop tti tables and a real chart disagree. See how saju is calculated.
Your animal year is one-eighth of the chart
A saju chart holds 4 pillars × 2 characters = 8 characters, and the animal is one of them: the year branch (년지, 年支), read as ancestry and the outward social self. The other 7 do the personal work — the year stem (the "Fire" in Fire Horse), the month pillar (season and formative years, the heaviest weight in a reading), your day master on the day stem, the day branch as spouse palace, and the hour pillar for private life and later years. One branch is 12.5% of the chart, and not the character that stands for you.
Why two people with the same animal read differently
Two Tigers diverge because the day master and element balance dominate a reading, and neither is set by the birth year. With 10 possible day masters and 60 possible day pillars, a single 12-month window scatters across the full range — one Tiger is Yang Water, another Yin Earth.
Element spread across the 8 characters does the rest, and a missing element usually says more about someone than their animal does. That is the structural flaw in tti-only content: it buckets roughly 8% of all birthdays into one paragraph.
Animal compatibility charts (띠 궁합) and their limits
Traditional tti matching runs on two positional branch patterns:
- Harmony triads (삼합, 三合) — 4 sets of 3 animals spaced 4 branches apart: Monkey-Rat-Dragon, Pig-Rabbit-Goat, Tiger-Horse-Dog, Snake-Rooster-Ox.
- Clash pairs (충, 沖) — 6 pairs sitting 6 branches (180°) apart: Rat-Horse, Ox-Goat, Tiger-Monkey, Rabbit-Rooster, Dragon-Dog, Snake-Pig.
Both are real mechanics — they just run on one branch each. Full-chart gunghap compares 16 characters across two charts: both day masters, both element spreads, both spouse palaces, and every harmony and clash tag among the branches, not only the year ones. Tradition already named the shallow layer surface gunghap (겉궁합) against inner gunghap (속궁합). Saju compatibility (gunghap) covers what a two-chart comparison weighs.
Korean zodiac vs Chinese zodiac
Both run the same 12 earthly branches in the same order and the same 60-step stem-branch cycle. These are not two zodiacs — the differences are convention and usage.
| Korean (띠) | Chinese (生肖) | |
|---|---|---|
| Chart boundary | Ipchun (입춘), ~Feb 4 | Lichun (立春), same term |
| Popular boundary | Often Lunar New Year (설날) | Often Lunar New Year (春节) |
| Clock | Often corrected to true solar time (135°E standard vs Seoul at 127°E) | Standard local time, as-is |
| Cultural role | Age small talk, saju cafes, samjae (삼재) | Benmingnian (本命年), your animal's return |
Vietnam is the one place the animals differ: the Cat for 卯, where Korea and China read the Rabbit. Saju vs bazi maps the wider practice-level gaps.
Find your animal and your day master in one chart
Both come out of the same calculation, so there is no reason to look up only one. Enter your birth date and our free chart resolves the ipchun boundary, prints the year branch with its animal, and labels your day master — all eight characters in seconds. Read the animal first, then the day master: that is where a chart stops describing a cohort and starts describing you. New here? Start with what is saju.
FAQ
- What is my Korean zodiac animal (tti)?
- Your tti is the animal attached to the earthly branch of your birth year — Rat (자, 子) through Pig (해, 亥), on a twelve-year loop. In a saju chart it sits in one specific spot: the year branch, the bottom character of the year pillar. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture defines tti in exactly those terms, as the birth-year branch expressed as an animal name.
- Does the Korean zodiac year change on January 1 or Lunar New Year?
- Neither, for saju purposes. The four-pillars year turns at ipchun (입춘, 立春), the first of the 24 solar terms, which falls around February 3–5. Casual Korean conversation often flips the animal at Lunar New Year (설날), but a real chart does not — so anyone born in January or the first days of February carries the previous year's animal.
- Why do two people with the same zodiac animal seem so different?
- Because the year branch is only one of eight characters, and the two things that dominate a reading — the day master and the element balance — are not set by the birth year. With 10 possible day masters and 60 possible day pillars, people born in the same twelve-month window scatter across the entire range: one can be Yang Water, another Yin Earth.
- Is Korean zodiac compatibility (띠 궁합) reliable?
- It uses real mechanics but only a sliver of the data. Traditional tti matching runs on two branch patterns — four harmony triads of three animals spaced four branches apart, and six clash pairs sitting six branches apart. Full-chart gunghap compares 16 characters across two charts instead: both day masters, both element spreads, both spouse palaces, and every harmony and clash tag among the branches.
- Is the Korean zodiac different from the Chinese zodiac?
- The animals and the branch cycle are identical — same 12 earthly branches in the same order, same 60-step stem-branch cycle. What differs is convention and usage: Korean practice commonly corrects to true solar time because Korea keeps the 135°E standard meridian while Seoul sits near 127°E, and the cultural rituals diverge (samjae in Korea, benmingnian in China).