What Chinese Zodiac Is 2021? Year of the Metal Ox

2021 Lunar New Year: start and end dates

Lunar New Year opened the Metal Ox year on February 12, 2021, and the year ran to January 31, 2022. So a birth date of Feb 12, 2021 or later counts as Metal Ox, and so do early 2022 birthdays through Jan 31; births in 2021 before Feb 12 still belong to the Metal Rat. 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: 1961 are Metal Ox years too. That Friday new year arrived with the Sun in Aquarius in the Western zodiac.

What the Metal Ox is like

An Ox forged in iron: that is the classic image of this year. Earth feeding Metal produces, in traditional readings, a formidable worker with deep integrity and little patience for shortcuts. Those born now are trusted for their honesty. Learning that rest is not weakness and that other methods can work too makes them leaders others follow willingly. Their word is usually as good as a contract.

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.

2021 in the animal cycle and in numerology

In numerology the year reduces to 5, the number of change, freedom and movement, and a 5 year is usually described as restless and full of variety. The digits of 2021 add up to 5. The Ox holds the second place among the twelve animals and its fixed element is Earth. Set beside the year's Metal stem, earth generates Metal, which readings use to describe how settled or stretched the combination feels. The year before was the Metal Rat and the year after is the Water Tiger.

Chinese almanacs name 2021 Xin-Chou, pairing the Metal stem Xin with the branch Chou. 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.