What Chinese Zodiac Is 1931? Year of the Metal Goat

When the 1931 Metal Goat year starts and ends

The 1931 Metal Goat year began at Lunar New Year on February 17, 1931 and lasted until February 5, 1932, the day before the next new year. Anyone born between January 1 and Feb 17 1931 therefore belongs to the Metal Horse year that started in 1930, while someone born in early 1932, up to Feb 5, is still a Metal Goat. The Chinese calendar is lunisolar, which is why the start date moves between January 21 and February 20 instead of staying on January 1. The same Metal Goat combination also falls in 1991, sixty years apart, because five elements and twelve animals realign only once in each sixty-year cycle. Lunar New Year 1931 fell on a Tuesday, while the Western Sun was in Aquarius.

Metal Goat personality

A Metal Goat year adds backbone to the gentlest sign in the cycle. The Goat's Earth feeds Metal, so traditional readings describe people born then as artistic but disciplined, sensitive but surprisingly firm about what they value. Their taste is often refined and their loyalty protective. The caution is perfectionism and private insecurity, which gentle self-talk tends to ease. Beauty and order matter to them in equal measure.

Metal is the element of autumn and harvest, and a Metal year is traditionally said to sharpen whatever animal it meets. Descriptions associate it with determination, discipline, clear judgement and a strong code of principle. Metal-year people are often portrayed as decisive, self-reliant and willing to do difficult things because they are right. The element is linked with refinement and with cutting away what is unnecessary, so it tends to bring focus and high standards. Its traditional shadow is rigidity: Metal can become inflexible, proud or emotionally guarded, preferring to be correct over being close, and finding it hard to bend once a position is taken.

1931 in numerology and the twelve-year cycle

In numerology the year reduces to 5, the number of change, freedom and movement, and a 5 year is usually described as restless and full of variety. The digits of 1931 add up to 14, which reduces to 5. In the twelve-year cycle the Goat is the eighth animal, earthly branch Wei, with Earth as its fixed element and Yin polarity. The year element is Metal, and in the five-element cycles earth generates Metal. The year before was the Metal Horse and the year after is the Water Monkey.

In the traditional sexagenary count the year is called Xin-Wei: Xin is the Metal heavenly stem and Wei is the Goat's earthly branch. Stems and branches alternate between yang and yin together, which is why yin stems only ever meet yin animals.