What Chinese Zodiac Is 2020? Year of the Metal Rat

2020 Lunar New Year: start and end dates

Lunar New Year opened the Metal Rat year on January 25, 2020, and the year ran to February 11, 2021. So a birth date of Jan 25, 2020 or later counts as Metal Rat, and so do early 2021 birthdays through Feb 11; births in 2020 before Jan 25 still belong to the Earth Pig. 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: 1960 are Metal Rat years too. That Saturday new year arrived with the Sun in Aquarius in the Western zodiac.

What the Metal Rat is like

Resourcefulness with a steel core defines this Rat year. Since Metal feeds Water, readings picture people born now as clear-sighted, determined and capable, with strong opinions about what they want. Sharing worries with a trusted friend, and asking open questions before stating a view, help keep their capability warm rather than rigid. Their loyalty, once won, tends to be remarkably durable and quietly practical in hard times.

Belonging to the west and to the clear, cool air of autumn, Metal adds edge, resolve and structure to any sign it colours. Classical texts connect it with righteousness, strength of will and the ability to see a situation without sentiment. A Metal stem often makes an animal more ambitious, more organised and more self-contained than usual. People born in Metal years are frequently described as loyal to their word and tireless once committed. The caution most readings add is a hardness that can isolate them, along with perfectionism and a reluctance to admit doubt or ask for help.

2020 in the animal cycle and in numerology

In numerology the digits reduce to 4, the number of structure, effort and foundations, which gives a 4 year a reputation for steady, practical work. The digits of 2020 add up to 4. The Rat holds the first place among the twelve animals and its fixed element is Water. Set beside the year's Metal stem, metal generates Water, which readings use to describe how settled or stretched the combination feels. The year before was the Earth Pig and the year after is the Metal Ox.

Chinese almanacs name 2020 Geng-Zi, pairing the Metal stem Geng with the branch Zi. 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.