Branch 1 of 12
Year of the Rat (鼠)
1996 · 2008 · 2020 · 2032
Fixed element Water · yang · rules the hour 23:00–01:00
The Rat at a Glance
- Position
- Branch 1 of 12
- Chinese
- 鼠 (shǔ)
- Fixed element
- Water, yang
- Double hour
- 23:00–01:00 — the Rat hour
- Recent years
- 1996, 2008, 2020
- Next year
- 2032, a Water Rat
- Trine (san he)
- Dragon and Monkey
- Harmony (liu he)
- Ox
- Opposite (liu chong)
- Horse
Character of the Rat
Clever, resourceful, versatile, and quick-witted. Rats are natural leaders who thrive in social situations. They possess sharp instincts and can adapt to any environment with ease. Their intelligence and charm make them excellent at finding solutions to complex problems. Rats are ambitious yet generous with those they love.
Every Rat Year from 1900 to 2100
17 of them, twelve years apart. Because ten heavenly stems cannot divide evenly among twelve branches, the Rat only ever meets five of the ten — so the Water Rat 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.
1900
Metal
1912
Water
1924
Wood
1936
Fire
1948
Earth
1960
Metal
1972
Water
1984
Wood
1996
Fire
2008
Earth
2020
Metal
2032
Water
2044
Wood
2056
Fire
2068
Earth
2080
Metal
2092
Water
Every Rat year is yang, 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 yin Rat, 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 Rats
The Rat 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 Rat 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 Rat is the doubled case; the full set is linked from the headings below.
Wood Rat甲子
1924, 1984, 2044
Water generates Wood, so the Rat gives to this year rather than drawing from it — productive, and depleting if unchecked.
Fire Rat丙子
1936, 1996, 2056
Water overcomes Fire, so here the sign has the upper hand over its own year.
1948, 2008, 2068
Earth overcomes Water, making this the variant tradition treats as the tested one — the year works against the sign's own element.
1900, 1960, 2020, 2080
Metal generates Water, so this variant is read as supported: the year feeds what the Rat already is.
1912, 1972, 2032, 2092
Water doubled — the year's stem matches the Rat's own element, which is why this variant is the one singled out in almanacs.
Who the Rat Matches
Chinese zodiac compatibility is geometry on a circle of twelve, not a list to be memorised. Once you know where the Rat sits — branch 1 — every claim below can be checked by counting.
San he · the trine · four places apart
Dragon and Monkey sit four and eight places from the Rat, 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.
Tradition reads this group as the quick ones — animals that see an opening and take it. All three are credited with intelligence of the improvising sort rather than the patient sort, and with a competitive streak that can read as opportunism. The classic illustration is the legend of how the cycle got its order: the Rat crossed the river riding on the Ox's back and jumped off at the bank to arrive first.
Liu he · the six harmonies · the fixed partner
Ox. The twelve branches pair off into six couples, and the Rat'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
Horse 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. Rabbit and Rooster 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 Rat
- Numbers:
- 2, 3
- Colours:
- Gold, Blue, Green
- Flowers:
- Lily, African Violet
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 Rat
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 Rats
- William Shakespeare (1564)
- George Washington (1732)
- King Charles III (1948)
- Scarlett Johansson (1984)
- Katy Perry (1984)
The birth years are given so the arithmetic can be checked: subtract 4 and divide by 12, and a remainder of 0 is a Rat. Everyone listed was born after 20 February, the latest the lunar new year can fall, so no boundary question arises.
Ben Ming Nian: the Rat'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 Rat that means 2020 and next 2032. 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 Rat 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 Rat is an earthly branch and depends only on the year, so everyone born in a Rat 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.
Rat FAQs
Which years are Rat years?
Between 1900 and 2100: 1900, 1912, 1924, 1936, 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, 1996, 2008, 2020, 2032, 2044, 2056, 2068, 2080, 2092. The Rat returns every twelve years, so if one of those is your birth year you are a Rat — 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 Rat year was 2020 and the next is 2032.
Which signs is the Rat most compatible with?
Dragon and Monkey and Ox, and the reason is structural rather than a matter of temperament. Dragon and Monkey sit four places from the Rat 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. Ox is the Rat'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 Rat?
Horse, 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; Rabbit and Rooster are the other two commonly named as awkward, being three places away, though popular lists disagree more about those.
What is a Water Rat?
The strongest form of the sign, on the traditional reading. Every animal carries a fixed element of its own — the Rat'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 Rat that happens in 1912, 1972, 2032 and 2092. Metal years (1900, 1960, 2020 and 2080) are held to support it, since Metal generates Water. Earth years (1948, 2008 and 2068) are the tense ones, since Earth overcomes Water. Written out, a Water Rat year is 壬子 — position 49 of the sixty-year cycle, and every one of them is yang, never the reverse.
If you were born in January of a Rat year, are you a Rat?
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 Pig rather than a Rat. Anyone born after 20 February is unambiguously a Rat, 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 Rat hour?
23:00–01:00. The twelve branches divide the day into double hours as well as the years into a cycle, and the Rat 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.