What Chinese Zodiac Is 2017? Year of the Fire Rooster

2017 Lunar New Year: start and end dates

Lunar New Year opened the Fire Rooster year on January 28, 2017, and the year ran to February 15, 2018. So a birth date of Jan 28, 2017 or later counts as Fire Rooster, and so do early 2018 birthdays through Feb 15; births in 2017 before Jan 28 still belong to the Fire Monkey. 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: 1957 are Fire Rooster years too. That Saturday new year arrived with the Sun in Aquarius in the Western zodiac.

What the Fire Rooster is like

Bright plumage and a loud dawn call: that is the traditional sense of a Fire Rooster year. With Fire controlling Metal, readings describe a forceful, hard-driving personality, honest to a fault and generous with effort. Those born now shine at managing projects and people. Letting others take the stage and resting before irritability builds are classic suggestions. Colleagues often admire their stamina and sheer nerve.

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.

2017 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 2017 add up to 10, which reduces to 1. The Rooster holds the tenth place among the twelve animals and its fixed element is Metal. Set beside the year's Fire stem, fire controls Metal, which readings use to describe how settled or stretched the combination feels. The year before was the Fire Monkey and the year after is the Earth Dog.

Chinese almanacs name 2017 Ding-You, pairing the Fire stem Ding with the branch You. 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.