Branch 12 of 12
Year of the Pig (猪)
1995 · 2007 · 2019 · 2031
Fixed element Water · yin · rules the hour 21:00–23:00
The Pig at a Glance
- Position
- Branch 12 of 12
- Chinese
- 猪 (zhū)
- Fixed element
- Water, yin
- Double hour
- 21:00–23:00 — the Pig hour
- Recent years
- 1995, 2007, 2019
- Next year
- 2031, a Metal Pig
- Trine (san he)
- Rabbit and Goat
- Harmony (liu he)
- Tiger
- Opposite (liu chong)
- Snake
Character of the Pig
Compassionate, generous, diligent, and optimistic. Pigs are warm-hearted souls who see the best in everyone and everything. They are natural peacemakers who bring people together with their sincerity and generosity. Their strong work ethic is balanced by an appreciation for life's pleasures. Pigs create abundance wherever they go.
Every Pig Year from 1900 to 2100
16 of them, twelve years apart. Because ten heavenly stems cannot divide evenly among twelve branches, the Pig only ever meets five of the ten — so the Water Pig 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.
1911
Metal
1923
Water
1935
Wood
1947
Fire
1959
Earth
1971
Metal
1983
Water
1995
Wood
2007
Fire
2019
Earth
2031
Metal
2043
Water
2055
Wood
2067
Fire
2079
Earth
2091
Metal
Every Pig 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 Pig, 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 Pigs
The Pig carries Water 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: Water is generated by Metal and overcome by Earth, while it in turn generates Wood and overcomes Fire. That is what separates one Pig 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 Water Pig is the doubled case; the full set is linked from the headings below.
Wood Pig乙亥
1935, 1995, 2055
Water generates Wood, so the Pig gives to this year rather than drawing from it — productive, and depleting if unchecked.
Fire Pig丁亥
1947, 2007, 2067
Water overcomes Fire, so here the sign has the upper hand over its own year.
1959, 2019, 2079
Earth overcomes Water, making this the variant tradition treats as the tested one — the year works against the sign's own element.
1911, 1971, 2031, 2091
Metal generates Water, so this variant is read as supported: the year feeds what the Pig already is.
1923, 1983, 2043
Water doubled — the year's stem matches the Pig's own element, which is why this variant is the one singled out in almanacs.
Who the Pig Matches
Chinese zodiac compatibility is geometry on a circle of twelve, not a list to be memorised. Once you know where the Pig sits — branch 12 — every claim below can be checked by counting.
San he · the trine · four places apart
Rabbit and Goat sit four and eight places from the Pig, 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
Tiger. The twelve branches pair off into six couples, and the Pig'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
Snake 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. Tiger and Monkey 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 Pig
- Numbers:
- 2, 5, 8
- Colours:
- Yellow, Grey, Brown, Gold
- Flowers:
- Hydrangea, Daisy
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 Pig
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 Pigs
- Henry Ford (1863)
- Ronald Reagan (1911)
- Elton John (1947)
- Arnold Schwarzenegger (1947)
- Kendall Jenner (1995)
The birth years are given so the arithmetic can be checked: subtract 4 and divide by 12, and a remainder of 11 is a Pig. Everyone listed was born after 20 February, the latest the lunar new year can fall, so no boundary question arises.
Ben Ming Nian: the Pig'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 Pig that means 2019 and next 2031. 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 Pig 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 Pig is an earthly branch and depends only on the year, so everyone born in a Pig 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.
Pig FAQs
Which years are Pig years?
Between 1900 and 2100: 1911, 1923, 1935, 1947, 1959, 1971, 1983, 1995, 2007, 2019, 2031, 2043, 2055, 2067, 2079, 2091. The Pig returns every twelve years, so if one of those is your birth year you are a Pig — 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 Pig year was 2019 and the next is 2031.
Which signs is the Pig most compatible with?
Rabbit and Goat and Tiger, and the reason is structural rather than a matter of temperament. Rabbit and Goat sit four places from the Pig 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. Tiger is the Pig'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 Pig?
Snake, 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; Tiger and Monkey are the other two commonly named as awkward, being three places away, though popular lists disagree more about those.
What is a Water Pig?
The strongest form of the sign, on the traditional reading. Every animal carries a fixed element of its own — the Pig's is Water — 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 Pig that happens in 1923, 1983 and 2043. Metal years (1911, 1971, 2031 and 2091) are held to support it, since Metal generates Water. Earth years (1959, 2019 and 2079) are the tense ones, since Earth overcomes Water. Written out, a Water Pig year is 癸亥 — position 60 of the sixty-year cycle, and every one of them is yin, never the reverse.
If you were born in January of a Pig year, are you a Pig?
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 Dog rather than a Pig. Anyone born after 20 February is unambiguously a Pig, 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 Pig hour?
21:00–23:00. The twelve branches divide the day into double hours as well as the years into a cycle, and the Pig 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.