What Chinese Zodiac Is 2007? Year of the Fire Pig

2007 Lunar New Year: start and end dates

Lunar New Year opened the Fire Pig year on February 18, 2007, and the year ran to February 6, 2008. So a birth date of Feb 18, 2007 or later counts as Fire Pig, and so do early 2008 birthdays through Feb 6; births in 2007 before Feb 18 still belong to the Fire 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: 1947 are Fire Pig years too. That Sunday new year arrived with the Sun in Aquarius in the Western zodiac.

What the Fire Pig is like

People born in a Fire Pig year are often portrayed as warm, energetic and wholehearted in everything they attempt. Water controlling Fire is read as a check that channels heat rather than extinguishing it. They are generous with effort and affection. Readings suggest pacing ambitions, listening when others raise concerns and using exercise to steady emotional swings. Their laughter is often the loudest in the room.

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.

2007 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 2007 add up to 9. The Pig holds the twelfth place among the twelve animals and its fixed element is Water. Set beside the year's Fire stem, water controls Fire, which readings use to describe how settled or stretched the combination feels. The year before was the Fire Dog and the year after is the Earth Rat.

Chinese almanacs name 2007 Ding-Hai, pairing the Fire stem Ding 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.