What Chinese Zodiac Is 1995? Year of the Wood Pig

1995 Lunar New Year: start and end dates

Lunar New Year opened the Wood Pig year on January 31, 1995, and the year ran to February 18, 1996. So a birth date of Jan 31, 1995 or later counts as Wood Pig, and so do early 1996 birthdays through Feb 18; births in 1995 before Jan 31 still belong to the Wood Dog. 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: 1935 are Wood Pig years too. That Tuesday new year arrived with the Sun in Aquarius in the Western zodiac.

What the Wood Pig is like

People born in a Wood Pig year are often portrayed as kind, cheerful connectors who believe the best of others. Water generating Wood is read as abundance spent on growth, so their goodwill tends to build lasting circles of friends. They usually enjoy food, music and gatherings. Discernment about favours, loans and promises is the protective habit most readings recommend.

In the five-element scheme, Wood belongs to the east and to the green energy of early spring, and that seasonal image shapes how it colours an animal sign. A Wood stem tends to soften sharp edges and add warmth, curiosity and a cooperative instinct. Traditional texts associate it with benevolence, growth and the wish to build something that lasts beyond the self. People born under a Wood stem are often portrayed as principled, open-handed and hopeful about others. The caution usually attached to Wood is a habit of spreading energy thinly, saying yes to every request and feeling quietly hurt when generosity is not returned in kind.

1995 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 1995 add up to 24, which reduces to 6. The Pig holds the twelfth place among the twelve animals and its fixed element is Water. Set beside the year's Wood stem, water generates Wood, which readings use to describe how settled or stretched the combination feels. The year before was the Wood Dog and the year after is the Fire Rat.

Chinese almanacs name 1995 Yi-Hai, pairing the Wood stem Yi with the branch Hai. 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.