What is my zodiac sign?

Seen from Earth, the Sun travels through all twelve zodiac signs once a year, spending about a month in each. Your sun sign is the sign the Sun occupied on the day you were born.

The Sun does not respect the calendar, though. It crosses from one sign into the next at a precise moment that lands on a slightly different date each year, sometimes March 20, sometimes March 21. That is why two people born on the same date in different years can carry different signs.

If your birthday sits near a boundary, printed date tables will fail you: they cannot know which side of the crossing your birth fell on. The only honest answer comes from computing the Sun's position for your actual birth date, which is what this tool does.

On a true cusp day even the hour matters. The Sun can change signs at lunchtime, putting a morning baby and an evening baby in different signs. Your full birth chart, computed to the minute, removes the doubt.

The dates you see printed for each sign are averages. The Sun crosses from one sign into the next at a precise instant that drifts by up to a day or so across the years, nudged by leap years and the slow turning of the calendar.

So a boundary that is usually March 21 can fall on March 20, which is why a fixed table sometimes disagrees with your chart. Computing the Sun's real position for your exact date is what removes the guesswork.

The twelve signs run in a fixed sequence that the Sun walks each year: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces. Each covers about thirty degrees of the Sun's yearly path and roughly a month of the calendar.

The table above lists every sign with its usual date range, so you can see where your birthday falls and which signs sit on either side. On the boundary days between two signs, the calculator settles which one is yours.

Most Western astrology, and this calculator, uses the tropical zodiac, which ties the signs to the seasons and the spring equinox. A second system, the sidereal zodiac used in Vedic astrology, ties them to the constellations, which have drifted over the centuries, so its dates run a few weeks later.

Neither is more correct; they answer different traditions. If your sign here differs from one you saw elsewhere, a tropical or sidereal difference is the usual reason.

Astrologers read your sun sign as your core: your sense of self, your vitality and the direction you are growing in. It is the part a daily horoscope by sign is written for, and the one most people mean when they ask your sign.

It is also the part that groups you with everyone born in the same month, which is exactly why it is only a beginning. Your Moon and your rising sign are what start to tell you apart from them.

The sun sign is one line of a much longer letter. Your Moon describes how you feel, your rising sign how you enter a room, and the houses and aspects tie it all together into something that is yours alone.

NovaOracles computes that full picture from real astronomy, personal to the minute and place you were born, and reads it for you every day.

Your birth date is enough; the year matters on boundary days, and the time on a true cusp. The calculation runs in your browser and the tool is free. Your Sun sign is the first layer, and your moon sign and rising sign are the next two.

The zodiac explained and the zodiac fundamentals guide cover the twelve signs, and the big three calculator puts Sun, Moon and rising side by side.