What Chinese Zodiac Is 1999? Year of the Earth Rabbit

1999 Lunar New Year: start and end dates

Lunar New Year opened the Earth Rabbit year on February 16, 1999, and the year ran to February 4, 2000. So a birth date of Feb 16, 1999 or later counts as Earth Rabbit, and so do early 2000 birthdays through Feb 4; births in 1999 before Feb 16 still belong to the Earth 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: 1939 are Earth Rabbit years too. That Tuesday new year arrived with the Sun in Aquarius in the Western zodiac.

What the Earth Rabbit is like

Those born in an Earth Rabbit year are often portrayed as steady, home-loving diplomats with clear ideas about the life they want. Wood controlling Earth is read as quiet influence over practical matters. They tend to save, plan and tend relationships patiently. Readings suggest small experiments to build confidence, since evidence persuades them more than encouragement does. Friends often rely on their calm advice when tempers fray elsewhere.

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.

1999 in the animal cycle and in numerology

In numerology the year's digits reduce to 1, the number of beginnings, initiative and independence, so numerologists describe a 1 year as one that rewards starting things. The digits of 1999 add up to 28, which reduces to 1. The Rabbit holds the fourth 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 Earth Tiger and the year after is the Metal Dragon.

Chinese almanacs name 1999 Ji-Mao, pairing the Earth stem Ji 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.