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Chinese Zodiac · 5 of 12

Born in a Year of the Dragon? The year is where the card starts, not where it ends.

What are people born in the Year of the Dragon like?

The Dragon is the fifth of the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac. Its years begin at Lunar New Year, not January 1, so a January or early February birthday may belong to the animal before. Recent Dragon years: 2000, 2012 and 2024. Each comes with one of five elements, so the same pair returns every sixty years.

The Dragon is one of twelve. What is the Chinese zodiac, and where did the animals come from?

What it is

Your Chinese zodiac animal is the animal of the year you were born in, and the year is counted from Lunar New Year, not January 1. The Dragon is the fifth of the twelve. It stands for the fifth Earthly Branch, written 辰 (chén), one of twelve signs Chinese calendars have used to number days, months, years and the hours of the day for more than three thousand years. 1,2

The animal is the easy half of a year’s name. The other half is one of ten Heavenly Stems, which come in five pairs: wood, fire, earth, metal and water. The two lists step forward together, so a Dragon year comes round every twelve years with the next element along, and any one element and animal meet only once in sixty years. Since 1948 the Dragon years have been 1952 (Water), 1964 (Wood), 1976 (Fire), 1988 (Earth), 2000 (Metal), 2012 (Water) and 2024 (Wood). 3,4,1

Each stem is either yang or yin, and because the lists move in step, a yang stem only ever meets the odd-numbered branches. The Dragon is number 5, so every Dragon year is a yang year. 4,1

The branches name more than years. The Dragon’s branch also names the two hours from 7 am to 9 am, the 3rd month of the old lunar calendar, and a direction on the compass: east-southeast. 4,1

A birth year is one part of a Chinese reading, not the whole of it. Practitioners read the year together with the day and hour of birth, which is why the animal on its own only goes so far. 1

This is the short version for one animal. How the twelve-year and sixty-year cycles work, and the whole history, is on the master page: What is the Chinese zodiac, and where did the animals come from?

The Dragon in Chinese tradition

What museums and old stories make of the animal. The same for everyone born in its years.

The dragon is the one mythical creature among the twelve, and the most auspicious. A Chinese dragon brings rain and good fortune; it is not the fire-breathing monster of European stories. 5,6,7

It was also the emperor’s emblem. Dragons on imperial robes announced that the ruler would bring good fortune to the country, and the meanings of wisdom and power have carried over onto Lunar New Year stamps around the world. 6,7,8

In Thailand the fifth animal is the naga, a mythical serpent. 9

The Dragon at a glance 4,1
Place in the cycle5 of 12
In Chinese龍 (lóng)
Earthly Branch辰 (chén)
Yin or yangYang, every time
Hours7 am to 9 am
Month of the lunar calendar3rd month
Compass120°, with north at 0°
SeasonSpring
Last Dragon year2024, Wood Dragon: February 10, 2024 to January 28, 2025
Next Dragon year2036 (twelve years on; past the end of the machine’s tables, which run to 2031)

Where the Dragon comes from

Era by era, with sources. The whole story of the twelve is on the master page, Where did the Chinese zodiac come from?

  1. Shangc. 1300–1050 BCEDiviners for the Shang kings carve questions on ox shoulder blades and turtle shells and date them by a sixty-day count built from ten Heavenly Stems and twelve Earthly Branches. The branches that will later carry the animals are already in use, as names for days. 2,10
  2. Qinc. 217 BCEA Qin official is buried at Shuihudi, in Hubei, with a “day book”, an almanac of good and bad days for everyday jobs. The Lam Museum dates a Chinese zodiac system to the Qin; the Macao Communications Museum says a fairly complete one already existed before it. 11,12,13
  3. Han1st century CEWang Chong (27–c. 100 CE), a sceptical scholar of the Eastern Han, writes the Lunheng, or Balanced Discussions. It is the oldest surviving book to list the same twelve animals in use today. 14,13
  4. Hanc. 100 CEYears start to be recorded by the twelve animals: the Hong Kong Observatory dates the custom to about 100 CE. By the Eastern Han, the Metropolitan Museum says, the order of the animals is settled. 15,16
  5. Tang618–907Potters model sets of the twelve animals with human bodies and animal heads, a style the V&A holds examples of. 6
  6. Across AsiaOver many centuriesThe calendar and its animals travel with Chinese influence and change on the way. Vietnam has a buffalo for the Ox and a cat for the Rabbit, Japan a wild boar for the Pig, Thailand a naga serpent for the Dragon, and Korea a sheep for the Goat. 16,9,17
  7. Republic1912Until 1912, Chinese years were officially counted in sixty-year cycles of stems and branches. The cycle carries on in almanacs, at New Year and in the year animal everyone knows. 6
  8. Dragon years1988 and 2000A study of Hong Kong births finds short-lived jumps in both Dragon years, set against a long decline: parents moved the timing of a child, not the number of children. 18
  9. Singapore2021 studyResearchers find Dragon-year birth timing among Singapore’s Chinese majority but not among other groups, and trace later differences in earnings to the size of the Dragon cohorts rather than to the year itself. 19
  10. United States1992The US Postal Service issues a Year of the Rooster stamp designed by Clarence Lee, the first US stamp with Chinese characters on it. It sells so well that a Lunar New Year series follows. 20
  11. Today2023–2024The UN General Assembly lists Lunar New Year as a UN floating holiday from 2024, and UNESCO inscribes the Spring Festival on its list of the world’s intangible cultural heritage in December 2024. 21,22
  12. Today2024Lunar New Year on 10 February 2024 opens a Wood Dragon year. 23

Worked out, not guessed

Calculated facts only, worked out the same way the machine does it.

  • To find the animal for a year, take away 4 and divide by 12. A remainder of 4 means the Dragon. Take 2024: 2024 − 4 = 2020, and 2020 ÷ 12 leaves 4.
  • The element comes from the last digit of the year: 0 or 1 is Metal, 2 or 3 Water, 4 or 5 Wood, 6 or 7 Fire, 8 or 9 Earth. 2024 ends in 4, so it was a Wood Dragon year.
  • Both rules count the Chinese year, which starts at Lunar New Year, on a new moon between January 21 and February 20. Born in January or February before that year’s new moon? Use the year before.
  • The machine works out every Lunar New Year itself, from the new moons and the December solstice, on the Beijing calendar.
Year of the Dragon, 1928–2024
YearElementStartsEnds
1928EarthJanuary 23, 1928February 9, 1929
1940MetalFebruary 8, 1940January 26, 1941
1952WaterJanuary 27, 1952February 13, 1953
1964WoodFebruary 13, 1964February 1, 1965
1976FireJanuary 31, 1976February 17, 1977
1988EarthFebruary 17, 1988February 5, 1989
2000MetalFebruary 5, 2000January 23, 2001
2012WaterJanuary 23, 2012February 9, 2013
2024WoodFebruary 10, 2024January 28, 2025

The Great Race

A folk tale, told many ways. It explains the order of the animals, not where they came from.

Everyone expected the Dragon, which could fly, to win easily. It came in fifth.

Asked why, it told the Jade Emperor it had stopped to bring rain to a village that needed it, and on the way had blown the struggling Rabbit’s log to shore.

Other tellings swap the race for a banquet given by the Buddha, with the animals placed in the order they arrived. The Lam Museum, which tells its own version, is careful to add that it is only a story. 17,12

Friends and opposites

Old pairings from the almanacs. They describe how the system lines animals up, not how any two people will get on.

Chinese almanacs pair the animals by where they sit on the circle. Animals four places apart make a group of three, the “three harmonies” (sān hé) that tradition counts as natural allies. The Dragon’s group is the Dragon, the Rat and the Monkey.

The animal straight across the circle, six places away, is the Dragon’s opposite: the Dog. Tradition calls the pair a clash (chōng), and reads it as two animals pulling in different directions rather than a verdict on anyone. These pairings have long been used in fortune-telling, including when families weighed up a match. 12

Every Dragon reads this page. Only your card knows you.

Your card names your animal and its element from the exact Lunar New Year date, then reads it with your sun sign, your numbers and your sky.

What your card covers

Worked out from the day, the minute and the place you were born. Sealed until you print it.

See all six pages, sealedFold the pages back
  1. Page 1 of 6, Who you are, with every line sealed. Sections: Your sign, Your Moon, Your rising sign, Your number, Your strongest traits, Your gifts, Your challenges, Chinese year · stone · flower, Your angel number.1 Who you are
  2. Page 2 of 6, The machine says, with every line sealed. Sections: The machine's reading, The lesson that keeps finding you, Your turning points, The old rhyme, Your days.2 The machine says
  3. Page 3 of 6, Your sky, with every line sealed. Sections: Your placements, Your aspects, The sky the day you arrived.3 Your sky
  4. Page 4 of 6, Love & your people, with every line sealed. Sections: Your love chart, Your love matches, The people in your life.4 Love & your people
  5. Page 5 of 6, Work & money, with every line sealed. Sections: Your work, Your money, Work this year, Money this year.5 Work & money
  6. Page 6 of 6, Your year ahead, with every line sealed. Sections: Your year ahead, Love this year, Month by month, Your lucky charms.6 Your year ahead

Who you are

  • Your sun sign, its decan and any cusp (sealed)
  • Your strongest traits (sealed)
  • Your gifts (sealed)
  • Your challenges (sealed)
  • The lesson that keeps finding you (sealed)
  • The machine's reading (sealed)
  • Your headline (sealed)

Your birth chart

  • Your birth chart wheel (sealed)
  • Your placements: Sun, Moon and planets by sign (sealed)
  • Your Moon with a birth time (sealed)
  • Your rising sign with a birth time and place (sealed)
  • Your Ascendant, Midheaven and houses with a birth time and place (sealed)
  • Your aspects (sealed)

Your love chart

  • Your love chart (sealed)
  • Your Descendant: who you're drawn to with a birth time and place (sealed)
  • Your love matches (sealed)
  • Love this year (sealed)

Your people

  • The people in your life (sealed)

Your work

  • Your work (sealed)
  • Work this year (sealed)

Your money

  • Your money (sealed)
  • Money this year (sealed)

Your numbers

  • Your number (sealed)
  • Your angel number (sealed)

Your year ahead

  • Your year ahead (sealed)
  • Month by month (sealed)
  • Your lucky charms (sealed)

Your sky and your years

  • The sky the day you arrived (sealed)
  • Your days (sealed)
  • The old rhyme for your weekday (sealed)
  • Your Chinese year, birthstone and flower (sealed)
  • Your turning points (sealed)
  • The machine log: every step it took (sealed)
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Sources

  1. Heaven Stems and Earth Branches, University of California San Diego (David K. Jordan). Read on .
  2. Oracle bone collection (Or 7694/1506-2125), British Library. Read on .
  3. What year is it today?, Hong Kong Observatory. Read on .
  4. Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches (tables of stems, branches, directions, months and hours), Kenyon College, Department of Religion (course materials, Religion 270). Read on .
  5. Hirshhorn presents Ai Weiwei: Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads, Smithsonian. Read on .
  6. The 12 zodiac animals at the V&A, Victoria and Albert Museum blog (Ming Wilson), 1 February 2011. Read on .
  7. Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads: Dragon, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian. Read on .
  8. Stamp Stories: Dragons, National Postal Museum, Smithsonian. Read on .
  9. Lunar New Year: dates, animals and the zodiac, Royal Museums Greenwich. Read on .
  10. Inscribed Plastron Ping 0063, Museum of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica. Read on .
  11. Popular Culture and Books of Fate in Early China, International Consortium for Research in the Humanities, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (workshop, December 2012). Read on .
  12. The Chinese Zodiac, Timothy S. Y. Lam Museum of Anthropology, Wake Forest University. Read on .
  13. Chinese Zodiac in Postage Stamps: Introduction, Macao Communications Museum. Read on .
  14. Wang Chong (Wang Ch’ung), Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Alexus McLeod, University of Dayton). Read on .
  15. The 12 animals, Hong Kong Observatory. Read on .
  16. Set of twelve zodiac animals, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Read on .
  17. What is the Chinese zodiac?, National Geographic (Erin Blakemore), 23 January 2026. Read on .
  18. The influence of the Chinese zodiac on fertility in Hong Kong SAR, Social Science & Medicine (PubMed record). Read on .
  19. Fortunes of Dragons: Cohort size effects on life outcomes, Population Studies (PubMed record). Read on .
  20. Clarence Lee Stamps, Museum of Chinese in America. Read on .
  21. Spring Festival listed as UN floating holiday, The State Council of the People’s Republic of China (Xinhua), 22 December 2023. Read on .
  22. Spring festival, social practices of the Chinese people in celebration of traditional new year, UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage (Representative List, inscribed 2024). Read on .
  23. Lunar New Year 2024: What does the Year of the Dragon mean?, The University of Sydney. Read on .

For entertainment and self-reflection. Astrology and numerology are traditions, not science.

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