Branch 8 of 12
Year of the Goat (羊)
1991 · 2003 · 2015 · 2027
Fixed element Earth · yin · rules the hour 13:00–15:00
The Goat at a Glance
- Position
- Branch 8 of 12
- Chinese
- 羊 (yáng)
- Fixed element
- Earth, yin
- Double hour
- 13:00–15:00 — the Goat hour
- Recent years
- 1991, 2003, 2015
- Next year
- 2027, a Fire Goat
- Trine (san he)
- Pig and Rabbit
- Harmony (liu he)
- Horse
- Opposite (liu chong)
- Ox
Character of the Goat
Calm, gentle, creative, and sympathetic. Goats are artistic souls with a deep appreciation for beauty and harmony. They are compassionate and empathetic, often putting others' needs before their own. Their creative imagination produces extraordinary art, music, and literature. Goats thrive in peaceful, nurturing environments.
Every Goat Year from 1900 to 2100
17 of them, twelve years apart. Because ten heavenly stems cannot divide evenly among twelve branches, the Goat only ever meets five of the ten — so the Earth Goat returns every sixty years, not every twelve. That sixty-year round is the sexagenary cycle, which is why a sixtieth birthday counts as a completion rather than just another decade.
1907
Fire
1919
Earth
1931
Metal
1943
Water
1955
Wood
1967
Fire
1979
Earth
1991
Metal
2003
Water
2015
Wood
2027
Fire
2039
Earth
2051
Metal
2063
Water
2075
Wood
2087
Fire
2099
Earth
Every Goat year is yin, without exception. The stem's polarity and the branch's are both set by the parity of the year, so they can never disagree — there is no such thing as a yang Goat, of any element. Counted across all twelve animals that rules out sixty of the hundred and twenty animal-element-polarity names in circulation, which the sexagenary cycle page sets out in full.
The Five Goats
The Goat carries Earth as its own fixed element, whatever year it falls in. The year's stem then lays a second element over that, and the five phases relate to each other in fixed ways: Earth is generated by Fire and overcome by Wood, while it in turn generates Metal and overcomes Water. That is what separates one Goat from another.
Each of the five has its own page, carrying the pair of characters that actually names the year, its position in the sixty-year round and why its polarity cannot be otherwise. The one for the Earth Goat is the doubled case; the full set is linked from the headings below.
1955, 2015, 2075
Wood overcomes Earth, making this the variant tradition treats as the tested one — the year works against the sign's own element.
1907, 1967, 2027, 2087
Fire generates Earth, so this variant is read as supported: the year feeds what the Goat already is.
1919, 1979, 2039, 2099
Earth doubled — the year's stem matches the Goat's own element, which is why this variant is the one singled out in almanacs.
1931, 1991, 2051
Earth generates Metal, so the Goat gives to this year rather than drawing from it — productive, and depleting if unchecked.
1943, 2003, 2063
Earth overcomes Water, so here the sign has the upper hand over its own year.
Who the Goat Matches
Chinese zodiac compatibility is geometry on a circle of twelve, not a list to be memorised. Once you know where the Goat sits — branch 8 — every claim below can be checked by counting.
San he · the trine · four places apart
Pig and Rabbit sit four and eight places from the Goat, so the three of them form an equilateral triangle in the cycle — and their double hours land eight hours apart, dividing the day evenly between them. Branches spaced this evenly are held to share an outlook, which is why this is the strongest of the affinities, and why the four trines are the same four groups in every school.
The peace-seekers. This trine is characterised by an aversion to open conflict and a strong pull toward comfort, beauty and company — a temperament that makes for good hosts and reluctant negotiators. Its animals are credited with the finest aesthetic sense of the twelve, and warned about a tendency to yield in order to keep a room pleasant.
Liu he · the six harmonies · the fixed partner
Horse. The twelve branches pair off into six couples, and the Goat's partner is fixed — it has exactly one. Where the trine is a shared temperament, liu he is described as a secret or complementary alliance: the two cover each other's gaps rather than agreeing.
Liu chong · the clash · directly opposite
Ox stands six places away, half the cycle, so the two branches face each other across the circle. That opposition is read as friction rather than catastrophe — an axis, and axes are where movement happens. Dog and Dragon are three places off and are named as awkward in most lists, though the schools agree far less about these than about the clash.
None of this is a verdict on a relationship — it reads one factor, the birth year. A Vedic assessment weighs both Moons, the seventh house and the Mars positions: Kundli Milan works from the birth details rather than the year.
Lucky for the Goat
- Numbers:
- 2, 7
- Colours:
- Brown, Red, Purple
- Flowers:
- Carnation, Primrose
Recorded by tradition, not calculated — unlike the years and the compatibility rules above, there is no arithmetic behind these to check.
Work that Suits the Goat
Drawn from the temperament above. A birth year is thin ground for a career decision; in a Vedic chart the tenth house and its lord carry that question.
Well-known Goats
- Michelangelo (1475)
- Mark Twain (1835)
- Steve Jobs (1955)
- Julia Roberts (1967)
- Ed Sheeran (1991)
The birth years are given so the arithmetic can be checked: subtract 4 and divide by 12, and a remainder of 7 is a Goat. Everyone listed was born after 20 February, the latest the lunar new year can fall, so no boundary question arises.
Ben Ming Nian: the Goat's Own Year
Every twelfth year the cycle returns to the branch you were born under, and that year — ben ming nian — is traditionally the wary one rather than the lucky one, which surprises most people. For the Goat that means 2015 and next 2027. The customary response is to wear red: a cord, a thread, something given by someone else rather than bought for yourself. The reasoning is that a year of your own sign brings you into unusually direct contact with your own fate, and direct contact is exposure.
There is no Vedic equivalent, because a Vimshottari dasha runs six to twenty years depending on the planet holding it — so the wary stretches of a life fall in an order unique to the chart, not on a twelve-year drumbeat.
The Goat Is Not a Rashi
Both systems use twelve signs, and that coincidence does most of the damage. A rashi is a thirty-degree arc of the zodiac and changes every few weeks; the Goat is an earthly branch and depends only on the year, so everyone born in a Goat year shares it regardless of month, day or place. The nearer Vedic parallel is the sixty-year Samvatsara cycle, which likewise names years in a repeating round. For the sign that actually drives a Vedic reading — the Moon's — use the moon sign calculator or the full kundli.
Goat FAQs
Which years are Goat years?
Between 1900 and 2100: 1907, 1919, 1931, 1943, 1955, 1967, 1979, 1991, 2003, 2015, 2027, 2039, 2051, 2063, 2075, 2087, 2099. The Goat returns every twelve years, so if one of those is your birth year you are a Goat — with the caveat that the Chinese year begins at the lunar new year in late January or February, not on 1 January. The most recent Goat year was 2015 and the next is 2027.
Which signs is the Goat most compatible with?
Pig and Rabbit and Horse, and the reason is structural rather than a matter of temperament. Pig and Rabbit sit four places from the Goat in the cycle of twelve, forming the triangle called san he — the three branches share an affinity because they are evenly spaced around the circle. Horse is the Goat's partner in liu he, the six harmonies, which pair each branch with exactly one other. Those four are the matches every school agrees on.
Which sign clashes with the Goat?
Ox, which sits directly opposite — six places away, so the two branches are half a cycle apart. This is liu chong, the six clashes. In practice it describes a pairing that has to work at understanding each other rather than one that is doomed; Dog and Dragon are the other two commonly named as awkward, being three places away, though popular lists disagree more about those.
What is an Earth Goat?
The strongest form of the sign, on the traditional reading. Every animal carries a fixed element of its own — the Goat's is Earth — and separately, each year carries one of the five elements as its heavenly stem. When the two coincide the quality is doubled, and for the Goat that happens in 1919, 1979, 2039 and 2099. Fire years (1907, 1967, 2027 and 2087) are held to support it, since Fire generates Earth. Wood years (1955, 2015 and 2075) are the tense ones, since Wood overcomes Earth. Written out, an Earth Goat year is 己未 — position 56 of the sixty-year cycle, and every one of them is yin, never the reverse.
If you were born in January of a Goat year, are you a Goat?
Usually not. The Chinese year turns at the lunar new year, which falls between 21 January and 20 February, so a birthday before it belongs to the previous year — making you a Horse rather than a Goat. Anyone born after 20 February is unambiguously a Goat, since that is the latest the new year can fall. If your birthday is in that window, the year's lunar new year date settles it.
What is the Goat hour?
13:00–15:00. The twelve branches divide the day into double hours as well as the years into a cycle, and the Goat governs that stretch. It is the closest Chinese parallel to the Vedic hora, which likewise assigns each hour of the day to a ruler — though the hora runs on the seven planets and a sunrise-to-sunrise day, so the two do not line up.