What Chinese Zodiac Is 2039? Year of the Earth Goat

2039 Lunar New Year: start and end dates

Lunar New Year opened the Earth Goat year on January 24, 2039, and the year ran to February 11, 2040. So a birth date of Jan 24, 2039 or later counts as Earth Goat, and so do early 2040 birthdays through Feb 11; births in 2039 before Jan 24 still belong to the Earth Horse. 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: 1979 are Earth Goat years too. That Monday new year arrived with the Sun in Aquarius in the Western zodiac.

What the Earth Goat is like

Double Earth gives this Goat year a reputation for practical tenderness. Those born now are pictured as patient, thoughtful and good with resources, often expressing creativity through cooking, crafts and home-making. Sharing worries aloud, accepting help and setting goals slightly beyond comfort keep doubled Earth from settling into stagnation. Their steady kindness is often the glue that holds extended families together across many years.

In classical thought, Earth belongs to the centre and to the late-summer pause between seasons, the point where things ripen and settle. As a year stem, it tends to slow an animal down in a useful way, adding prudence, loyalty and a strong sense of responsibility. People born under an Earth stem are often described as dependable, sensible and protective of the people they love. They value security and tend to build carefully. The caution traditionally attached to Earth is caution itself: overthinking, clinging to the familiar and carrying other people's problems as though they were their own.

2039 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 2039 add up to 14, which reduces to 5. The Goat holds the eighth place among the twelve animals and its fixed element is Earth. Set beside the year's Earth stem, earth year element matches the fixed element, which readings use to describe how settled or stretched the combination feels. The year before was the Earth Horse and the year after is the Metal Monkey.

Chinese almanacs name 2039 Ji-Wei, pairing the Earth stem Ji with the branch Wei. 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.