Ipchun: the moment your zodiac year actually changes

What time is Ipchun 2027?

Ipchun is a moment, not a date: the sun reaches 315 degrees of ecliptic longitude at 01:46 UTC on Feb 4, 2027. Across the Americas that moment is still Feb 3 on the local clock. Toronto is on the same clock as New York.

What is Ipchun?

The solar year is split into 24 terms, each 15 degrees of the sun's path. Ipchun is the first. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture puts it around Feb 4 in the solar calendar, when the sun is at 315 degrees, and calls it the term that symbolizes the new year (입춘, E0047822). Japan's national observatory lists 2027's 立春 at 10:46 on Feb 4, Japan time, the same minute our engine gives for Seoul, since the two countries share UTC+9 (NAOJ).

Because Ipchun follows the sun and Lunar New Year follows the moon, their order changes from year to year. Ipchun can land in the twelfth lunar month or the first, and sometimes twice in one lunar year; the encyclopedia notes Korean has a word for that double spring, 재봉춘 (再逢春).

Does the zodiac year start at Lunar New Year or at Ipchun?

For saju, at Ipchun. The encyclopedia's entry on saju says that in fortune reading the new year begins at Ipchun, and gives its own example: in 1920, Ipchun fell on the 16th day of the previous lunar year's twelfth month, so a person born that day already counts as born in the new year, 경신 (庚申) (사주, E0025957). The same applies the other way: a birth after Lunar New Year but before Ipchun keeps the old year.

Many zodiac websites and calendars switch animals at Lunar New Year instead, which is a fine convention for festivals but not the one saju uses. The two can be weeks apart:

• 1990: Lunar New Year (China) was Jan 27, 1990; Ipchun was Feb 4, 11:14 AM in Seoul. Born Jan 30, 1990: a Horse on Lunar-New-Year sites, but 己巳 Snake in saju.
• 1991: Lunar New Year (China) was Feb 15, 1991; Ipchun was Feb 4, 5:08 PM in Seoul. Born Feb 10, 1991: a Horse on Lunar-New-Year sites, but 辛未 Goat in saju.
• 2027: Ipchun is Feb 4 in Seoul, Chinese New Year is Feb 6, and Korea's Seollal is Feb 7 per the official almanac (KASA); why the two New Years differ. Anyone born between Ipchun and Seollal is a Goat in saju and a Horse by the lunar count.

Ipchun dates and times for every year, 1930 to 2027

Find your birth year. If you were born before the time in your city's column, your saju year is the one in the row above; on or after it, the row you're in. The Lunar New Year column gives China's date, the one zodiac sites that switch at the new year go by; Korea's Seollal usually falls on the same date but not always (2027 is one of the exceptions).

Each column uses the clock the city actually ran on that day. For Seoul that means 1955–1961 (UTC+08:30): from March 1954 to August 1961 Korea set its clocks by the 127°30′E meridian instead of 135°E (시법, E0032366). For New York, 1943–1945 and 1974, when daylight or war time (UTC-04:00) was in force in February.

What changes in a saju chart at Ipchun?

Two of the four pillars switch at once. The year pillar moves to the new year (丙午 to 丁未 in 2027) and the month pillar moves from the last month of the old year to the first of the new (辛丑 to 壬寅). The day pillar and hour pillar don't care about solar terms; they follow the clock.

The other eleven months open the same way, each at a "jie" term: 驚蟄, 清明, 立夏, 芒種, 小暑, 立秋, 白露, 寒露, 立冬, 大雪, 小寒. The dates and times for 2027 are in the 2027 month table.

This is also why two calculators can give you different charts for the same birthday near early February. If one uses Lunar New Year, a different time zone, or a date without the time, the year and month pillars can flip. The free chart works from the instant: when a birthday sits on a seasonal turn it asks for your birth time and your birthplace's time zone (such as America/New_York), and the time-zone database supplies whatever daylight or war time that place was on.

Is Ipchun always on February 4?

No. Between 1930 and 2027, Ipchun fell on February 3, 4 and 5 in Seoul, and it drifts about six hours later each year until a leap year pulls it back. In the Americas it often lands on Feb 3 local time. Always check the time, not only the date.

Korean Ipchun customs

On Ipchun, Korean households have long pasted up 입춘첩 (ipchuncheop), short wishes brushed on paper for the gate or the main beam. Two classic wishes are 입춘대길 (立春大吉), "great fortune as spring begins", and 건양다경 (建陽多慶), "bright days and many joys" (Korea.net).

The encyclopedia also records the day's farming divinations, such as pulling up barley roots to judge the year's crop, and 입춘굿, a large Ipchun rite held on Jeju Island (입춘, E0047822). The day had its own dish, too: 오신반 (osinban), a plate of five pungent spring greens served at the royal court, while ordinary households cooked fresh greens of their own (Korea.net). These are folk customs of the day, not part of the chart math.

About this page

Written with AI (Claude) from the sources listed and our calculation engine. Horan and Kachi are fictional characters, and nothing here predicts events. The rules behind every chart: how we calculate.