Branch 6 of 12
Year of the Snake (蛇)
2001 · 2013 · 2025 · 2037
Fixed element Fire · yin · rules the hour 09:00–11:00
The Snake at a Glance
- Position
- Branch 6 of 12
- Chinese
- 蛇 (shé)
- Fixed element
- Fire, yin
- Double hour
- 09:00–11:00 — the Snake hour
- Recent years
- 2001, 2013, 2025
- Next year
- 2037, a Fire Snake
- Trine (san he)
- Rooster and Ox
- Harmony (liu he)
- Monkey
- Opposite (liu chong)
- Pig
Character of the Snake
Enigmatic, intelligent, wise, and intuitive. Snakes are deep thinkers with a philosophical nature and keen perception. They move through life with grace and purpose, rarely revealing their true intentions. Their wisdom and analytical mind make them excellent strategists. Snakes possess natural elegance and a magnetic allure.
Every Snake Year from 1900 to 2100
17 of them, twelve years apart. Because ten heavenly stems cannot divide evenly among twelve branches, the Snake only ever meets five of the ten — so the Fire Snake 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.
1905
Wood
1917
Fire
1929
Earth
1941
Metal
1953
Water
1965
Wood
1977
Fire
1989
Earth
2001
Metal
2013
Water
2025
Wood
2037
Fire
2049
Earth
2061
Metal
2073
Water
2085
Wood
2097
Fire
Every Snake 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 Snake, 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 Snakes
The Snake carries Fire 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: Fire is generated by Wood and overcome by Water, while it in turn generates Earth and overcomes Metal. That is what separates one Snake 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 Fire Snake is the doubled case; the full set is linked from the headings below.
1905, 1965, 2025, 2085
Wood generates Fire, so this variant is read as supported: the year feeds what the Snake already is.
1917, 1977, 2037, 2097
Fire doubled — the year's stem matches the Snake's own element, which is why this variant is the one singled out in almanacs.
1929, 1989, 2049
Fire generates Earth, so the Snake gives to this year rather than drawing from it — productive, and depleting if unchecked.
1941, 2001, 2061
Fire overcomes Metal, so here the sign has the upper hand over its own year.
1953, 2013, 2073
Water overcomes Fire, making this the variant tradition treats as the tested one — the year works against the sign's own element.
Who the Snake Matches
Chinese zodiac compatibility is geometry on a circle of twelve, not a list to be memorised. Once you know where the Snake sits — branch 6 — every claim below can be checked by counting.
San he · the trine · four places apart
Rooster and Ox sit four and eight places from the Snake, 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.
This trine is the deliberate one. Its animals are described as working from a plan rather than an impulse, holding to a standard, and being unimpressed by charm — qualities that make them steady and, in the same breath, hard to argue with. Where the first trine improvises, this one prepares, and the traditional criticism of all three is a certain inflexibility once the position is taken.
Liu he · the six harmonies · the fixed partner
Monkey. The twelve branches pair off into six couples, and the Snake'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
Pig 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. Monkey and Tiger 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 Snake
- Numbers:
- 2, 8, 9
- Colours:
- Black, Red, Yellow
- Flowers:
- Orchid, Cactus
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 Snake
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 Snakes
- Mahatma Gandhi (1869)
- Pablo Picasso (1881)
- Bob Dylan (1941)
- Oprah Winfrey — born early in 1954, before that year's lunar new year, so the Chinese year is 1953 and the sign is Snake rather than Horse.
- J. K. Rowling (1965)
The birth years are given so the arithmetic can be checked: subtract 4 and divide by 12, and a remainder of 5 is a Snake. The entries marked above are exactly why that is not the whole rule.
Ben Ming Nian: the Snake'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 Snake that means 2025 and next 2037. 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 Snake 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 Snake is an earthly branch and depends only on the year, so everyone born in a Snake 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.
Snake FAQs
Which years are Snake years?
Between 1900 and 2100: 1905, 1917, 1929, 1941, 1953, 1965, 1977, 1989, 2001, 2013, 2025, 2037, 2049, 2061, 2073, 2085, 2097. The Snake returns every twelve years, so if one of those is your birth year you are a Snake — 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 Snake year was 2025 and the next is 2037.
Which signs is the Snake most compatible with?
Rooster and Ox and Monkey, and the reason is structural rather than a matter of temperament. Rooster and Ox sit four places from the Snake 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. Monkey is the Snake'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 Snake?
Pig, 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; Monkey and Tiger are the other two commonly named as awkward, being three places away, though popular lists disagree more about those.
What is a Fire Snake?
The strongest form of the sign, on the traditional reading. Every animal carries a fixed element of its own — the Snake's is Fire — 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 Snake that happens in 1917, 1977, 2037 and 2097. Wood years (1905, 1965, 2025 and 2085) are held to support it, since Wood generates Fire. Water years (1953, 2013 and 2073) are the tense ones, since Water overcomes Fire. Written out, a Fire Snake year is 丁巳 — position 54 of the sixty-year cycle, and every one of them is yin, never the reverse.
If you were born in January of a Snake year, are you a Snake?
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 Dragon rather than a Snake. Anyone born after 20 February is unambiguously a Snake, 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 Snake hour?
09:00–11:00. The twelve branches divide the day into double hours as well as the years into a cycle, and the Snake 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.