September 16 at a glance
- Zodiac sign
- ♍ Virgo
- Element and modality
- earth, mutable
- Ruling planet
- Mercury
- Place in the sign
- Day 25 of Virgo; Libra starts 7 days later on the calendar
- Decan
- 3 of 3, ruled by Taurus (September 12 to 22)
- Cusp
- Not a cusp date
- Birthday number
- 16 reduces to 7 (1 + 6 = 7)
- September birthstone
- Sapphire
Ask about the zodiac sign for September 16
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The sign and the constellation, side by side
The Sun is about 24 degrees into Virgo on September 16, and by that time of year the sign has been running for nearly a month. Oddly, it is also around this date that the Sun enters the constellation Virgo on the sky, because the zodiac signs and the constellations that share their names drifted apart over the past two thousand years.
Mexico celebrates Independence Day on September 16, and the United Nations marks the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer on the same date. Both are fixed by history, not by the Sun, though they sit comfortably on a date the northern calendar reads as the start of autumn.
Spica, the brightest star of the constellation Virgo, takes its name from the Latin for an ear of grain, and the sign has been tied to harvest imagery since antiquity. By mid-September the northern harvest is under way, and the picture of a figure holding a sheaf is easy to place on the calendar. It is a pleasing match of season and symbol, though the symbol came first.
Where September 16 sits in Virgo
A birthday in the last third of Virgo, a mutable earth sign, is read in tradition as the sign at its most practical and attentive to detail. With the Libra boundary a week away and out of reach of any time zone, no blending applies from the sign next door. The sign described on the Virgo page is the one that belongs here.
The Sun does not change sign on this date in any year or time zone we checked. The next sign, Libra, starts on September 23 on the calendar, so September 16 reads as Virgo throughout.
The Virgo decan for September 16
September 16 falls in decan 3 of Virgo, September 12 to 22, ruled by Taurus. Each sign is cut into three decans of about ten days, ruled in turn by the sign itself and the next two signs of its element.
Taurus, another earth sign, supplies the third Virgo decan, and the reading adds a sensual and patient note to Virgo's preoccupation with order. In decan tradition this stretch is also the steadiest of the three, so it is the least likely to be described as anxious.
Birthday number 7 for September 16
The day 16 reduces to 7: 1 + 6 = 7. No step lands on a master number.
A 16 reduces to 7 (1 + 6), and seven is the number of the classical planets: the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Numerologists read 7 as the number of study and solitude, which suits Virgo's reputation. Card XVI of the tarot, The Tower, is a different story, and numerologists mostly keep the two readings apart.
The September birthstone
Birthstones follow the month and not the day, so a birthday on September 16 shares Sapphire with every other September birthday. See September birthstones.
September 16 zodiac questions
Could September 16 be Libra?
No. The Sun enters Libra on September 22 or 23, so September 16 is Virgo in every year and every zone.
Is the Sun in the constellation Virgo on September 16?
About then. The signs of the tropical zodiac and the constellations of the same names no longer line up, so the Sun enters the constellation weeks after the sign has begun.
What does the Taurus decan add to September 16?
A patient, sensual note on top of Virgo's attention to order, in the decan tradition. It is read as a shade of the sign.
Dates next to September 16
Other September dates with their own page: September 22.
A birthday date is one piece of the chart
Our astrologers read the Moon, rising sign, houses and transits that a date cannot show.
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