Korean Zodiac Compatibility Chart: Best and Worst Matches
Heo Yu (Kim Dong-hyun) · Updated 2026.11.10 · 6 min read
Korean zodiac compatibility for all 12 animals in one chart: best matches, clashes and Wonjin pairs, plus why your year animal is only a first clue.
This article is translated from the Korean original. Read the Korean original
Contents ⌄
Korean zodiac compatibility (tti gunghap, 띠궁합) compares the Earthly Branches of the two people's birth years, their year branches, and asks how the two relate. Each of the twelve animals has one Six Harmonies partner, two Three Harmonies partners, one Clash and one Wonjin. Find your own animal's row in the chart below and you can see at a glance which animals match well and which tend to collide.
The twelve-animal compatibility chart
In saju your zodiac animal changes at Lichun (Start of Spring, around February 4), not on January 1 or Lunar New Year. If you were born in January or early February, check your animal first.
| Animal (branch) | Six Harmonies | Three Harmonies | Clash | Wonjin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rat (子) | Ox (丑) | Monkey (申) · Dragon (辰) | Horse (午) | Goat (未) |
| Ox (丑) | Rat (子) | Snake (巳) · Rooster (酉) | Goat (未) | Horse (午) |
| Tiger (寅) | Pig (亥) | Horse (午) · Dog (戌) | Monkey (申) | Rooster (酉) |
| Rabbit (卯) | Dog (戌) | Pig (亥) · Goat (未) | Rooster (酉) | Monkey (申) |
| Dragon (辰) | Rooster (酉) | Monkey (申) · Rat (子) | Dog (戌) | Pig (亥) |
| Snake (巳) | Monkey (申) | Rooster (酉) · Ox (丑) | Pig (亥) | Dog (戌) |
| Horse (午) | Goat (未) | Tiger (寅) · Dog (戌) | Rat (子) | Ox (丑) |
| Goat (未) | Horse (午) | Pig (亥) · Rabbit (卯) | Ox (丑) | Rat (子) |
| Monkey (申) | Snake (巳) | Rat (子) · Dragon (辰) | Tiger (寅) | Rabbit (卯) |
| Rooster (酉) | Dragon (辰) | Snake (巳) · Ox (丑) | Rabbit (卯) | Tiger (寅) |
| Dog (戌) | Rabbit (卯) | Tiger (寅) · Horse (午) | Dragon (辰) | Snake (巳) |
| Pig (亥) | Tiger (寅) | Rabbit (卯) · Goat (未) | Snake (巳) | Dragon (辰) |
The Six Harmonies and Three Harmonies are relationships of mutual pull. The Clash and Wonjin are read as relationships that collide or fall out of step. Same-animal pairs are left out of the chart: two identical branches form neither a harmony nor a clash, so zodiac matching treats them as neutral.
Read the chart in three steps.
- Set both people's animals by the Lichun rule.
- Find one person's row.
- Look for the other person's animal in the four columns of that row. If it isn't there, the chart rates the pair as neutral.
Take someone born in 1986 and someone born in 1983. 1986 is a Bing Yin (丙寅) year, the Tiger, and 1983 is a Gui Hai (癸亥) year, the Pig. The Pig sits in the Tiger row's Six Harmonies column, so the two are a Six Harmonies pair. The Horse of 1990 (Geng Wu, 庚午) and the Rat of 1984 (Jia Zi, 甲子) meet in the Clash column, and the Ox of 1985 (Yi Chou, 乙丑) and the 1990 Horse meet in the Wonjin column.
January birthdays need a second look. Someone born on January 20, 1987 was born before Lichun, so they are the Tiger of 1986 (Bing Yin), not the Rabbit of 1987 (Ding Mao). Reading the Rabbit row would give the wrong answer, so if your birthday falls near Lichun, check your Year Pillar with a manseryeok (Korean perpetual calendar) first.
| 子 | 丑 | 寅 | 卯 | 辰 | 巳 | 午 | 未 | 申 | 酉 | 戌 | 亥 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rat 子 | · | S | T | C | W | T | ||||||
| Ox 丑 | S | · | T | W | C | T | ||||||
| Tiger 寅 | · | T | C | W | T | S | ||||||
| Rabbit 卯 | · | T | W | C | S | T | ||||||
| Dragon 辰 | T | · | T | S | C | W | ||||||
| Snake 巳 | T | · | S | T | W | C | ||||||
| Horse 午 | C | W | T | · | S | T | ||||||
| Goat 未 | W | C | T | S | · | T | ||||||
| Monkey 申 | T | C | W | T | S | · | ||||||
| Rooster 酉 | T | W | C | S | T | · | ||||||
| Dog 戌 | T | S | C | W | T | · | ||||||
| Pig 亥 | S | T | W | C | T | · |
- SSix Harmonies
- TThree Harmonies
- CClash
- WWonjin
How to read harmonies, clashes and Wonjin
The relationships between the animals do not come from animal personalities. Lay the twelve branches around a circle like the face of a clock, and where two animals stand on that circle decides their relationship.
Six Harmonies
A Six Harmonies pair is two animals bound as a couple: Rat–Ox, Tiger–Pig, Rabbit–Dog, Dragon–Rooster, Snake–Monkey and Horse–Goat. Join the six pairs on the circle and you get six parallel lines. Heo Yu sees the Six Harmonies as a one-to-one bond formed only between the two people. It is close like family and hard to break, but it also brings the weight of holding each other in place.
Three Harmonies
A Three Harmonies group is three animals working as one team. They sit four places apart on the circle, so joining them draws an equilateral triangle. The branch that opens a season, the branch at its peak and the branch that closes it form one set. Even two of the three, without the third, count as a half harmony and are seen as being on the same side.
Clash
A Clash is two animals standing directly opposite each other on the circle. Like Rat and Horse, they sit six places apart, so every clash line passes through the center. In seasonal terms they are as far apart as midwinter and midsummer. The common view reads a clash as a relationship that collides and breaks. Heo Yu sees it as awakening rather than destruction, a force that clears out what has become familiar and moves you toward something new. Heo Yu adds that when a harmony sits nearby, that change leads to growth.
Wonjin
Wonjin (원진, 怨嗔) is a pairing used in Korean zodiac matching. It is the animal right next to the clash position, so its line passes just off the center. The six pairs are Rat–Goat, Ox–Horse, Tiger–Rooster, Rabbit–Monkey, Dragon–Pig and Snake–Dog. Korean folk belief calls it wonjin-sal and reads it as a pair who resent each other for no clear reason; such pairs were traditionally avoided in marriage. Folk tales are attached to it as well, such as the rat hating the goat's horns. Of the six pairs counted as Gwimun-gwan-sal (a Korean "ghost gate" star) in the common view, four overlap with Wonjin.
Outside the chart: Punishment
The common view also looks at Punishment (刑) beyond the four relationships in the chart. Tiger, Snake and Monkey form one three-way Punishment, Ox, Dog and Goat another, and Rat and Rabbit punish each other. These are usually read as friction over disputes or manners. This chart covers only harmonies, clashes and Wonjin, so treat Punishment as a side note.
The four Three Harmonies groups
The Three Harmonies split the twelve animals into four groups of three. In the common view, animals from the same group are the best matches in zodiac compatibility.
- Shen-Zi-Chen (申子辰): Monkey, Rat, Dragon. Starts in early autumn, peaks in midwinter and closes in late spring.
- Yin-Wu-Xu (寅午戌): Tiger, Horse, Dog. Starts in early spring, peaks in midsummer and closes in late autumn.
- Si-You-Chou (巳酉丑): Snake, Rooster, Ox. Starts in early summer, peaks in mid-autumn and closes in late winter.
- Hai-Mao-Wei (亥卯未): Pig, Rabbit, Goat. Starts in early winter, peaks in mid-spring and closes in late summer.
The first branch of each group (Yin, Shen, Si, Hai) is a growth branch that opens a season. The last, Chen, Xu, Chou and Wei, is a storage branch that closes one.
Heo Yu compares a Three Harmonies group to a team of people with different skills gathered around one goal. It has one member to get things started, one in full swing and one to consolidate experience, so the work keeps going. Joining a harmony does not erase each animal's character. The middle animal of each group, Zi, Wu, Mao and You, is the peak branch of its season, and Heo Yu reads that peak as the power to work together rather than as authority.
These four groups are also how Koreans count samjae (三災, "three calamities"). The three animals of one group enter samjae in the same year and leave it together.
Why the zodiac alone doesn't decide a match
Your zodiac animal is one character out of the eight in a saju chart: the year branch. Heo Yu reads the year branch as the environment given to you without your choice, the expectations of the people around you, received at birth. The direction you choose for yourself is read from the day branch.
Even a Six Harmonies pair reads differently depending on its position. A Six Harmonies combination in the month branch is a relationship given from birth; one in the day branch is a relationship you formed yourself along the way. Saju reads characters by where they sit, and zodiac matching compares just one of them, the year branch.
So the compatibility chart is closer to a first clue about how two people's backgrounds fit together. How two people actually get along only shows when you also look at the Day Master and the day branch. The Day Master is you; the day branch is where close relationships play out.
Heo Yu does not treat compatibility as a fixed score. Two people adjust to each other as they go, so even with a Clash or Wonjin, knowing where you collide shows you how to adapt. And even a Three Harmonies pair can turn out quite differently once you compare the two Day Masters.
- Six Harmonies
- Three Harmonies
- Clash
- Wonjin
- Ring: spring, summer, autumn, winter
Rat (子) Six Harmonies Ox · Three Harmonies Monkey and Dragon · Clash Horse · Wonjin Goat
Frequently asked questions
How do I find my best zodiac match?
Look at the Six Harmonies and Three Harmonies columns in your animal's row. For a Rat, the Ox (Six Harmonies) and the Monkey and Dragon (Three Harmonies) are the good matches.
Which zodiac animals are incompatible?
Clash and Wonjin pairs are usually called the incompatible ones. For a Horse, they are the Rat (Clash) and the Ox (Wonjin). This comes from comparing a single pair of year branches, though, so it doesn't mean the two people cannot get along.
Should Wonjin pairs avoid marriage?
Korean folk tradition has long discouraged marriages between Wonjin pairs. Still, Wonjin is a relationship between just one of the eight characters, the year branch. The relationship between the Day Masters and day branches, and the way two people adjust to each other, shape a match more.
How compatible are two people with the same animal?
The same animal forms neither a harmony nor a clash, so it counts as neutral. Someone born in 1990 and someone born in 2002 are both Horses. In the common view, the Dragon, Horse, Rooster and Pig meeting their own animal form a self-punishment (自刑), which is sometimes noted separately.
How is zodiac matching different from saju compatibility?
Zodiac matching compares only the two year branches. Saju compatibility reads all eight characters with the Day Master and day branch at the center, so it says more about how the two people actually relate. Enter a birth date and time into a manseryeok and you get the Day Pillar: its top character is the Day Master and its bottom character is the day branch.
The readings of Wonjin and self-punishment in this article summarize the common view. Heo Yu's own writings do not yet include a dedicated study of Wonjin.