What Chinese Zodiac Is 1972? Year of the Water Rat

When the 1972 Water Rat year starts and ends

The 1972 Water Rat year began at Lunar New Year on February 15, 1972 and lasted until February 2, 1973, the day before the next new year. Anyone born between January 1 and Feb 15 1972 therefore belongs to the Metal Pig year that started in 1971, while someone born in early 1973, up to Feb 2, is still a Water Rat. 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 Water Rat combination also falls in 2032, sixty years apart, because five elements and twelve animals realign only once in each sixty-year cycle. Lunar New Year 1972 fell on a Tuesday, while the Western Sun was in Aquarius.

Water Rat personality

Perceptive, articulate and imaginative, the Water Rat reads people with remarkable ease. The Rat's fixed element is Water, so this year doubles it, and tradition describes intuition and adaptability at full strength. People born now are often gifted with words and ideas. Changeability and worry are the usual cautions, eased by firm routines and grounding activities. Conversation with them tends to sparkle.

Water is the element of winter, stillness and depth, and a Water year is traditionally said to give any animal intuition, flexibility and a gift for communication. Descriptions associate it with wisdom, empathy and the ability to find a way around obstacles rather than through them. Water-year people are often portrayed as perceptive listeners, diplomatic and quietly persuasive, able to sense the mood of a room before anyone speaks. The element is linked with reflection and with the unseen, so it adds an inward, thoughtful layer. Its shadow, in most readings, is drift: indecision, secrecy, and a tendency to take on the shape of whoever is nearby.

1972 in numerology and the twelve-year cycle

In numerology the year's digits reduce to 1, the number of beginnings, initiative and independence, so numerologists describe a 1 year as one that rewards starting things. The digits of 1972 add up to 19, which reduces to 1. In the twelve-year cycle the Rat is the first animal, earthly branch Zi, with Water as its fixed element and Yang polarity. The year element is Water, and in the five-element cycles water year element matches the fixed element. The year before was the Metal Pig and the year after is the Water Ox.

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