What Chinese Zodiac Is 1971? Year of the Metal Pig

When the 1971 Metal Pig year starts and ends

The 1971 Metal Pig year began at Lunar New Year on January 27, 1971 and lasted until February 14, 1972, the day before the next new year. Anyone born between January 1 and Jan 27 1971 therefore belongs to the Metal Dog year that started in 1970, while someone born in early 1972, up to Feb 14, is still a Metal 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 Metal Pig combination also falls in 2031, sixty years apart, because five elements and twelve animals realign only once in each sixty-year cycle. Lunar New Year 1971 fell on a Wednesday, while the Western Sun was in Aquarius.

Metal Pig personality

Strong, honest and resilient, the Metal Pig pairs generosity with real backbone. Metal feeds the Pig's Water, which tradition reads as warmth supplied with determination. People born in this year are often loyal friends with clear goals. Stubbornness and swinging between hard work and indulgence are the usual watch-points. Their honesty is rarely unkind, and their help usually arrives before anyone asks for it, often in very practical form.

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.

1971 in numerology and the twelve-year cycle

In numerology the year reduces to 9, the number of completion, generosity and letting go, and a 9 year is traditionally read as one of endings that clear space. The digits of 1971 add up to 18, which reduces to 9. 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 Metal, and in the five-element cycles metal generates Water. The year before was the Metal Dog and the year after is the Water Rat.

In the traditional sexagenary count the year is called Xin-Hai: Xin is the Metal 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.