What Chinese Zodiac Is 2022? Year of the Water Tiger

2022 Lunar New Year: start and end dates

Lunar New Year opened the Water Tiger year on February 1, 2022, and the year ran to January 21, 2023. So a birth date of Feb 1, 2022 or later counts as Water Tiger, and so do early 2023 birthdays through Jan 21; births in 2022 before Feb 1 still belong to the Metal Ox. 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: 1962 are Water Tiger years too. That Tuesday new year arrived with the Sun in Aquarius in the Western zodiac.

What the Water Tiger is like

A Tiger that listens before it leaps is the traditional picture of this year. With Water generating Wood, readings describe calm confidence, rich imagination and strong intuition. Those born now often thrive in creative work. Boundaries against absorbing others' moods, and admitting when something hurts, let their compassionate boldness come through. Music, writing and design often attract them, and friends value their gentle, encouraging way of offering advice.

In classical thought, Water belongs to the north and to the deep, resting energy of winter, the season when life gathers strength out of sight. As a year stem, it tends to make an animal more reflective, adaptable and emotionally attuned. People born under a Water stem are often described as clever negotiators, sensitive friends and natural mediators who prefer influence to force. They value understanding and tend to think before they act. The caution traditionally attached to Water is fluidity taken too far: avoiding conflict, keeping too much hidden and losing a clear sense of their own direction.

2022 in the animal cycle and in numerology

In numerology the year's digits come to 6, linked with home, care and responsibility, so a 6 year is read as one centred on family and commitments. The digits of 2022 add up to 6. The Tiger holds the third place among the twelve animals and its fixed element is Wood. Set beside the year's Water stem, water generates Wood, which readings use to describe how settled or stretched the combination feels. The year before was the Metal Ox and the year after is the Water Rabbit.

Chinese almanacs name 2022 Ren-Yin, pairing the Water stem Ren with the branch Yin. 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.