What Chinese Zodiac Is 1998? Year of the Earth Tiger

1998 Lunar New Year: start and end dates

Lunar New Year opened the Earth Tiger year on January 28, 1998, and the year ran to February 15, 1999. So a birth date of Jan 28, 1998 or later counts as Earth Tiger, and so do early 1999 birthdays through Feb 15; births in 1998 before Jan 28 still belong to the Fire 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: 1938 are Earth Tiger years too. That Wednesday new year arrived with the Sun in Aquarius in the Western zodiac.

What the Earth Tiger is like

In an Earth Tiger year, the Tiger's daring meets Earth's realism. Classical descriptions picture people born now as fair-minded, steady and capable, still bold but rarely reckless. They tend to have a good sense of what is achievable. Setting deadlines for decisions, and allowing their playful side to show, are the suggestions readings most often make. Their bravery tends to show most clearly when others are panicking and someone needs to take sensible charge.

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.

1998 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 1998 add up to 27, which reduces to 9. The Tiger holds the third place among the twelve animals and its fixed element is Wood. Set beside the year's Earth stem, wood controls Earth, which readings use to describe how settled or stretched the combination feels. The year before was the Fire Ox and the year after is the Earth Rabbit.

Chinese almanacs name 1998 Wu-Yin, pairing the Earth stem Wu 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.