What Chinese Zodiac Is 1989? Year of the Earth Snake

1989 Lunar New Year: start and end dates

Lunar New Year opened the Earth Snake year on February 6, 1989, and the year ran to January 26, 1990. So a birth date of Feb 6, 1989 or later counts as Earth Snake, and so do early 1990 birthdays through Jan 26; births in 1989 before Feb 6 still belong to the Earth Dragon. 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: 1929 are Earth Snake years too. That Monday new year arrived with the Sun in Aquarius in the Western zodiac.

What the Earth Snake is like

Those born in an Earth Snake year are often pictured as the most approachable Snakes: thoughtful, reliable and quietly warm. Fire generating Earth turns intensity into steadiness in the traditional reading. Their patience suits long plans and careful savings. Readings suggest that small regular risks, plus honest conversations about hurt, keep their natural caution from narrowing their world too much.

In classical thought, Earth belongs to the centre and to the late-summer pause between seasons, the point where things ripen and settle. As a year stem, it tends to slow an animal down in a useful way, adding prudence, loyalty and a strong sense of responsibility. People born under an Earth stem are often described as dependable, sensible and protective of the people they love. They value security and tend to build carefully. The caution traditionally attached to Earth is caution itself: overthinking, clinging to the familiar and carrying other people's problems as though they were their own.

1989 in the animal cycle and in numerology

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 1989 add up to 27, which reduces to 9. The Snake holds the sixth place among the twelve animals and its fixed element is Fire. Set beside the year's Earth stem, fire generates Earth, which readings use to describe how settled or stretched the combination feels. The year before was the Earth Dragon and the year after is the Metal Horse.

Chinese almanacs name 1989 Ji-Si, pairing the Earth stem Ji with the branch Si. 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.