Branch 4 of 12
Year of the Rabbit (兔)
1999 · 2011 · 2023 · 2035
Fixed element Wood · yin · rules the hour 05:00–07:00
The Rabbit at a Glance
- Position
- Branch 4 of 12
- Chinese
- 兔 (tù)
- Fixed element
- Wood, yin
- Double hour
- 05:00–07:00 — the Rabbit hour
- Recent years
- 1999, 2011, 2023
- Next year
- 2035, a Wood Rabbit
- Trine (san he)
- Goat and Pig
- Harmony (liu he)
- Dog
- Opposite (liu chong)
- Rooster
Character of the Rabbit
Quiet, elegant, kind, and responsible. Rabbits possess a refined aesthetic sense and gentle demeanor that makes everyone feel at ease. They are excellent listeners and thoughtful advisors. Their diplomatic nature helps them navigate complex social situations gracefully. Rabbits appreciate beauty, art, and peaceful environments.
Every Rabbit Year from 1900 to 2100
17 of them, twelve years apart. Because ten heavenly stems cannot divide evenly among twelve branches, the Rabbit only ever meets five of the ten — so the Wood Rabbit 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.
1903
Water
1915
Wood
1927
Fire
1939
Earth
1951
Metal
1963
Water
1975
Wood
1987
Fire
1999
Earth
2011
Metal
2023
Water
2035
Wood
2047
Fire
2059
Earth
2071
Metal
2083
Water
2095
Wood
Every Rabbit 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 Rabbit, 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 Rabbits
The Rabbit carries Wood 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: Wood is generated by Water and overcome by Metal, while it in turn generates Fire and overcomes Earth. That is what separates one Rabbit 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 Wood Rabbit is the doubled case; the full set is linked from the headings below.
1915, 1975, 2035, 2095
Wood doubled — the year's stem matches the Rabbit's own element, which is why this variant is the one singled out in almanacs.
1927, 1987, 2047
Wood generates Fire, so the Rabbit gives to this year rather than drawing from it — productive, and depleting if unchecked.
1939, 1999, 2059
Wood overcomes Earth, so here the sign has the upper hand over its own year.
1951, 2011, 2071
Metal overcomes Wood, making this the variant tradition treats as the tested one — the year works against the sign's own element.
1903, 1963, 2023, 2083
Water generates Wood, so this variant is read as supported: the year feeds what the Rabbit already is.
Who the Rabbit Matches
Chinese zodiac compatibility is geometry on a circle of twelve, not a list to be memorised. Once you know where the Rabbit sits — branch 4 — every claim below can be checked by counting.
San he · the trine · four places apart
Goat and Pig sit four and eight places from the Rabbit, 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
Dog. The twelve branches pair off into six couples, and the Rabbit'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
Rooster 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. Horse and Rat 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 Rabbit
- Numbers:
- 3, 4, 6
- Colours:
- Red, Pink, Purple, Blue
- Flowers:
- Plantain Lily, Jasmine
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 Rabbit
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 Rabbits
- Albert Einstein (1879)
- Michael Jordan (1963)
- Angelina Jolie (1975)
- David Beckham (1975)
- Lionel Messi (1987)
The birth years are given so the arithmetic can be checked: subtract 4 and divide by 12, and a remainder of 3 is a Rabbit. Everyone listed was born after 20 February, the latest the lunar new year can fall, so no boundary question arises.
Ben Ming Nian: the Rabbit'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 Rabbit that means 2023 and next 2035. 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 Rabbit 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 Rabbit is an earthly branch and depends only on the year, so everyone born in a Rabbit 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.
Rabbit FAQs
Which years are Rabbit years?
Between 1900 and 2100: 1903, 1915, 1927, 1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999, 2011, 2023, 2035, 2047, 2059, 2071, 2083, 2095. The Rabbit returns every twelve years, so if one of those is your birth year you are a Rabbit — 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 Rabbit year was 2023 and the next is 2035.
Which signs is the Rabbit most compatible with?
Goat and Pig and Dog, and the reason is structural rather than a matter of temperament. Goat and Pig sit four places from the Rabbit 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. Dog is the Rabbit'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 Rabbit?
Rooster, 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; Horse and Rat are the other two commonly named as awkward, being three places away, though popular lists disagree more about those.
What is a Wood Rabbit?
The strongest form of the sign, on the traditional reading. Every animal carries a fixed element of its own — the Rabbit's is Wood — 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 Rabbit that happens in 1915, 1975, 2035 and 2095. Water years (1903, 1963, 2023 and 2083) are held to support it, since Water generates Wood. Metal years (1951, 2011 and 2071) are the tense ones, since Metal overcomes Wood. Written out, a Wood Rabbit year is 乙卯 — position 52 of the sixty-year cycle, and every one of them is yin, never the reverse.
If you were born in January of a Rabbit year, are you a Rabbit?
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 Tiger rather than a Rabbit. Anyone born after 20 February is unambiguously a Rabbit, 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 Rabbit hour?
05:00–07:00. The twelve branches divide the day into double hours as well as the years into a cycle, and the Rabbit 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.