Qing Palace chart (清宮表) folklore look-up. Enter the mother's date of birth and the conception date or due date; it works out the lunar age and lunar month and shows the chart's one cell. Folklore only: tested on 2.8 million births, it did no better than chance.
Qing Palace Gender Chart (Folklore)
- The Qing Palace chart is folklore, for cultural interest only.
- In the largest published test (2,840,755 Swedish births) its answers matched the actual sex no better than chance.
- A baby's sex is set by chromosomes at conception and cannot be foreseen from a lunar month or age.
- Never use it for any decision or for sex selection. This tool reads one cell for a pregnancy already under way and will not take a conception date later than today.
- China's Population and Family Planning Law, Art. 39, prohibits identifying fetal sex without medical need; Viet Nam's Population Law, Art. 6.3 (in force 1 July 2026), prohibits selecting, announcing or revealing it.
How to use
Enter the mother's Gregorian date of birth
The tool converts it to a lunar year, which it needs to work out her lunar age at conception. Everything runs in your browser.
Choose the date you know: conception or due date
Pick "Conception date" to use it directly, or "Due date" and the tool estimates conception as 266 days (38 weeks) earlier. The conception date cannot be later than today: the tool reads the chart only for a pregnancy that has already begun.
Read the chart's cell
Using "lunar age × lunar month", the tool finds the one matching cell in the chart (lunar ages 18–45 × lunar months 1–12) and shows only that cell. If circulating versions disagree on it, the result says so.
Treat it as folklore
The result is a look-up from a folklore table that has tested no better than chance. Never use it for any decision or for sex selection, and follow your local law.
The Qing Palace Chart: A Piece of Folk Tradition
The Qing Palace chart (清宮表, also called the Chinese gender chart) is a folklore look-up table that circulates widely in Chinese communities. It is read as a grid: the mother's lunar age (虛歲, 18 to 45 in the common version) gives the row, the lunar month of conception gives the column, and the cell where they meet reads 男 (boy) or 女 (girl). Many expectant parents look it up out of curiosity, as a light-hearted talking point. This tool reads that one cell for a pregnancy that has already begun: enter the mother's date of birth and either the conception date or the due date, and it works out the lunar age and lunar month and shows the chart's entry.
How it works, and what testing found
The look-up is deterministic: the tool converts both dates to the Chinese calendar, takes "conception lunar year − birth lunar year + 1" as the lunar age and the conception's lunar month as the column, and reads the cell. Nothing is random and nothing is sent anywhere. The chart itself has no scientific basis: a baby's sex is fixed at conception by whether the sperm carries an X or a Y chromosome, with no causal link to the mother's age or the month. It has also been tested. Villamor and colleagues applied it to 2,840,755 singleton births registered in Sweden between 1973 and 2006; agreement between its answers and the actual sex was κ = 0.0002, indistinguishable from chance (Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology, 2010; we have read the abstract, not the full text). A hospital study of 107 births in Jinan put its accuracy below 50% (Guo et al., Chinese Journal of Social Medicine, 2017, no. 1). Because slightly more boys than girls are born, guessing "boy" every time would do slightly better than a chart that is really chance.
"The Qing Palace chart is folk fun, not a medical tool — a child's sex is decided by chromosomes, and no month or age can change that."
Which version of the chart this page uses
Circulating copies of the chart disagree with each other. We compared three, cell by cell, on 27 September 2026: the copies on cn.5d8z.com and yourchineseastrology.com agree on 330 of 336 cells, while the one on chinesegendercalendar.cc differs from them on 42 and 38 cells. This page uses the chart the first two share. On the six cells where they disagree (lunar age 34, months 2, 3, 10 and 11; age 45, months 11 and 12) it follows yourchineseastrology.com, which the third copy agrees with on five of the six, and the result says so when you land on one. Until 27 September 2026 this page used a grid that matched none of them: it differed from each copy on 140 to 154 cells, and for mothers aged 18 and 21 it was the opposite of the common chart in every month. How age is counted matters too. This tool counts lunar age as one at birth plus one at each Lunar New Year; some sites use completed age plus one, and across the date pairs we tested that picked a different cell about a third of the time. A leap month is read as the month it repeats.
Two lines you must take seriously
First, never use this chart for any decision, and never for sex selection. That is why the tool reads only one cell for a pregnancy already under way, lists no row of months, and will not accept a conception date later than today. Second, follow the law. China's Population and Family Planning Law (2021 amendment), Article 39, prohibits using ultrasound or other technical means to identify a fetus's sex without medical need, and sex-selective abortion without medical need; Article 40 sets the penalties. Viet Nam's Population Law (No. 113/2025/QH15, in force from 1 July 2026), Article 6.3, prohibits selecting a fetus's sex by any means and announcing or revealing it, except where the Minister of Health allows it to diagnose and treat sex-linked disease. India's Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994 restricts it too: the Health Ministry's guidelines for district authorities list informing a pregnant woman of the sex of the foetus as a violation (Section 5(2)). The dates you enter never leave your browser.
It is about as accurate as a coin, and the Qing provenance is unevidenced
Tested on 2,840,755 Swedish births (Villamor et al., 2010), the chart's answers agreed with the actual sex at κ = 0.0002, indistinguishable from chance. We have read the paper's abstract; the full text was not available to us.
A baby's sex is fixed at the instant of conception — decided by whether the sperm carries an X (girl) or Y (boy) chromosome, with no causal link to the mother's age or any lunar month.
A hospital study of 107 births in Jinan (Chinese Journal of Social Medicine, 2017) found the chart's accuracy below 50%. With a sample that small, luck alone can land anywhere from about 40% to 60%.
Slightly more boys than girls are born: about 105.5 for every 100 girls worldwide in 2024, by UN estimates (World Bank indicator SP.POP.BRTH.MF). So guessing "boy" every time beats any chart that is really chance, by about one to two and a half percentage points.
Circulating copies disagree: the two most copied agree on 330 of 336 cells, a third differs from them on 38 to 42, and the grid this page used until 27 September 2026 differed from all three on more than 140.
The origin stories contradict each other. One says the chart lay in a tomb near Beijing for "nearly 700 years", which would put it around the 1300s, more than three centuries before the Qing dynasty began in 1644; others say Qing court eunuchs kept it, or that it was carried abroad in 1900 and copied back. None cites a source, and we found no archive or museum record of an original.
China's Population and Family Planning Law (2021 amendment), Article 39, prohibits identifying fetal sex without medical need and sex-selective abortion without medical need; Article 40 sets penalties ranging from warnings and fines to licence revocation and criminal liability.
Viet Nam's Population Law (No. 113/2025/QH15), in force from 1 July 2026, Article 6.3, prohibits selecting a fetus's sex by any means and announcing or revealing it. India's Health Ministry guidelines list informing a pregnant woman of the sex of the foetus as a violation of the 1994 PC&PNDT Act.
How age is counted changes the answer: using completed age plus one instead of the lunar-year count picked a different cell for about a third of the date pairs we tested. This tool uses the lunar-year count and reads a leap month as the month it repeats.
The tool runs entirely in your browser with no randomness and no AI, and the dates you enter never leave your device. The same two dates always give the same cell.
Frequently Asked Questions
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No. A Swedish study applied it to 2,840,755 births and found agreement with the actual sex of κ = 0.0002, indistinguishable from chance (Villamor et al., 2010), and a study of 107 births in Jinan found its accuracy below 50%. A baby's sex is decided by chromosomes at conception and has no causal link to the mother's age or the lunar month. Treat it as folklore, nothing more.
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No. The chart is folklore, not a medical tool, and cannot replace any examination. This page does not cover how to find out a baby's sex: in China, identifying fetal sex without medical need is prohibited (Population and Family Planning Law, Art. 39), and Viet Nam prohibits announcing or revealing it (Population Law, Art. 6.3).
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No. The chart has no influence on sex and has tested no better than chance, so no month is "better" for either. Sex selection on its basis is exactly what the Chinese, Vietnamese and Indian laws above are written against. That is why the tool reads one cell for a pregnancy already under way, lists no row of months, and will not accept a conception date later than today.
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The chart is laid out by 虛歲 (lunar age). This tool counts it as 1 in the birth year and adds 1 at each Lunar New Year, i.e. "conception lunar year − birth lunar year + 1", with New Year dates that match the Hong Kong Observatory's tables. Some sites use completed age plus one instead, and across the date pairs we tested that picked a different cell about a third of the time.
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It uses the lunar month. You enter a Gregorian date and the tool converts it to the matching lunar month. The chart has no leap months, so a date in a leap month is read as the month it repeats; some people instead count the first half of a leap month with the month before and the second half with the month after.
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Yes. Choose "Due date" and the tool estimates conception as 266 days (38 weeks) earlier, and says in the result that it is an estimate. It is approximate: if the real date falls across a lunar-month boundary, the cell can differ.
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The common chart covers lunar ages 18 to 45 only. Outside that range the tool shows no boy/girl result and does not extrapolate; it just notes the chart's range.
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No. The dates you enter never leave your browser: the conversion and look-up run on your device, and nothing is sent to our server or stored.
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There is no evidence it did. The stories contradict each other: "buried in an imperial tomb for nearly 700 years" would date it more than three centuries before the Qing dynasty began in 1644, while other versions say Qing court eunuchs kept it, or that it was taken abroad in 1900 and copied back. None cites a source, and we found no archive or museum record of an original.
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Two reasons. First, the versions differ: of the three we compared, two agree on 330 of 336 cells and the third differs from them on 38 to 42; the grid this page used until 27 September 2026 differed from all three on more than 140 and has been replaced with the common chart. Second, age and month are worked out differently: using completed age plus one instead of the lunar-year count picks a different cell for about a third of date pairs.
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Remember it has no predictive power at all and should not affect your feelings. Every child is equally worth welcoming and cherishing. If you have any concerns about your pregnancy, talk to a doctor — a folklore chart is never worth any anxiety.
Pick up where you left off
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