What Chinese Zodiac Is 2023? Year of the Water Rabbit

2023 Lunar New Year: start and end dates

Lunar New Year opened the Water Rabbit year on January 22, 2023, and the year ran to February 9, 2024. So a birth date of Jan 22, 2023 or later counts as Water Rabbit, and so do early 2024 birthdays through Feb 9; births in 2023 before Jan 22 still belong to the Water Tiger. 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: 1963 are Water Rabbit years too. That Sunday new year arrived with the Sun in Aquarius in the Western zodiac.

What the Water Rabbit is like

Quiet mornings and gentle company suit this most receptive of Rabbits. Since Water generates Wood, readings describe a dreamy, kind and intuitive character who keeps the peace at almost any cost. Those born now notice everything. Raising small problems early and setting decision deadlines help their perceptiveness turn into creative and caring work. A well-chosen book or a walk in the rain is often all they need to recover.

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.

2023 in the animal cycle and in numerology

In numerology the year reduces to 7, the number of reflection, analysis and inner work, giving a 7 year a quieter, more searching character. The digits of 2023 add up to 7. The Rabbit holds the fourth 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 Water Tiger and the year after is the Wood Dragon.

Chinese almanacs name 2023 Gui-Mao, pairing the Water stem Gui with the branch Mao. 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.