What Chinese Zodiac Is 1986? Year of the Fire Tiger

1986 Lunar New Year: start and end dates

Lunar New Year opened the Fire Tiger year on February 9, 1986, and the year ran to January 28, 1987. So a birth date of Feb 9, 1986 or later counts as Fire Tiger, and so do early 1987 birthdays through Jan 28; births in 1986 before Feb 9 still belong to the Wood Ox. That moving boundary comes from the lunisolar calendar, in which the new year starts with the second new moon after the winter solstice in most years, so its Gregorian date shifts by up to a month from one year to the next. Look sixty years either side and the pairing repeats: 1926 are Fire Tiger years too. That Sunday new year arrived with the Sun in Aquarius in the Western zodiac.

What the Fire Tiger is like

A Fire Tiger year brings together courage and blazing enthusiasm. Classical readings describe people born now as magnetic, daring and passionate, often first through any door that looks exciting. Because the Tiger's Wood kindles Fire directly, their vitality is abundant. Their growth, most interpretations suggest, lies in patience: sleeping on big decisions and listening to quieter voices before charging ahead.

Belonging to the south and to the height of summer, Fire brings brightness, drive and visibility to any sign it colours. Classical texts connect it with enthusiasm, leadership and the urge to be seen and to make an impression. A Fire stem tends to make an animal more expressive, more daring and more openly emotional than its usual reputation suggests. People born in Fire years are often described as inspiring company and natural motivators. The caution most readings attach is a short fuse and a difficulty with slow seasons, when steady effort matters more than spark and the reward is a long way off.

1986 in the animal cycle and in numerology

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 1986 add up to 24, which reduces to 6. The Tiger holds the third place among the twelve animals and its fixed element is Wood. Set beside the year's Fire stem, wood generates Fire, which readings use to describe how settled or stretched the combination feels. The year before was the Wood Ox and the year after is the Fire Rabbit.

Chinese almanacs name 1986 Bing-Yin, pairing the Fire stem Bing with the branch Yin. Both are Yang, as stem and branch always share a polarity, so of the hundred and twenty possible pairings only sixty ever occur, and each one names a single year in every cycle.