What Chinese Zodiac Is 1959? Year of the Earth Pig

When the 1959 Earth Pig year starts and ends

The 1959 Earth Pig year began at Lunar New Year on February 8, 1959 and lasted until January 27, 1960, the day before the next new year. Anyone born between January 1 and Feb 8 1959 therefore belongs to the Earth Dog year that started in 1958, while someone born in early 1960, up to Jan 27, is still a Earth Pig. 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 Earth Pig combination also falls in 2019, sixty years apart, because five elements and twelve animals realign only once in each sixty-year cycle. Lunar New Year 1959 fell on a Sunday, while the Western Sun was in Aquarius.

Earth Pig personality

Practical, devoted and quietly generous, the Earth Pig builds a home others love to visit. Earth contains the Pig's Water, which tradition reads as warmth given steady form. People born in this year are often good with resources and patient in their work. Excessive caution and comfort-seeking are their typical pitfalls; small adventures keep life fresh. Their hospitality is often the stuff of local legend.

Earth sits at the centre of the five-element wheel, and an Earth year is traditionally said to give any animal steadiness, patience and a practical turn of mind. Descriptions associate it with reliability, honesty and a talent for holding things together, whether that means a family, a budget or a team in a difficult season. Earth-year people are often portrayed as grounded, fair and good at turning ideas into workable plans. The element is linked with nourishment and care, so it carries a quiet generosity. Its shadow, in most readings, is heaviness: worry, stubbornness and a reluctance to move until every risk has been weighed twice.

1959 in numerology and the twelve-year cycle

In numerology the year's digits come to 6, linked with home, care and responsibility, so a 6 year is read as one centred on family and commitments. The digits of 1959 add up to 24, which reduces to 6. In the twelve-year cycle the Pig is the twelfth animal, earthly branch Hai, with Water as its fixed element and Yin polarity. The year element is Earth, and in the five-element cycles earth controls Water. The year before was the Earth Dog and the year after is the Metal Rat.

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