What Chinese Zodiac Is 1987? Year of the Fire Rabbit

1987 Lunar New Year: start and end dates

Lunar New Year opened the Fire Rabbit year on January 29, 1987, and the year ran to February 16, 1988. So a birth date of Jan 29, 1987 or later counts as Fire Rabbit, and so do early 1988 birthdays through Feb 16; births in 1987 before Jan 29 still belong to the Fire Tiger. 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: 1927 are Fire Rabbit years too. That Thursday new year arrived with the Sun in Aquarius in the Western zodiac.

What the Fire Rabbit is like

People born in a Fire Rabbit year are often pictured as affectionate diplomats with a performer's flair. The Rabbit's tact meets Fire's brightness, and since Wood generates Fire, the combination tends to flow easily outward. Expect, in traditional terms, someone sociable and openly warm. Readings suggest guarding against mood swings by alternating lively periods with quiet ones and keeping a few close confidants.

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.

1987 in the animal cycle and in numerology

In numerology the year reduces to 7, the number of reflection, analysis and inner work, giving a 7 year a quieter, more searching character. The digits of 1987 add up to 25, which reduces to 7. The Rabbit holds the fourth 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 Fire Tiger and the year after is the Earth Dragon.

Chinese almanacs name 1987 Ding-Mao, pairing the Fire stem Ding with the branch Mao. Both are Yin, 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.