Branch 3 of 12
Year of the Tiger (虎)
1998 · 2010 · 2022 · 2034
Fixed element Wood · yang · rules the hour 03:00–05:00
The Tiger at a Glance
- Position
- Branch 3 of 12
- Chinese
- 虎 (hǔ)
- Fixed element
- Wood, yang
- Double hour
- 03:00–05:00 — the Tiger hour
- Recent years
- 1998, 2010, 2022
- Next year
- 2034, a Wood Tiger
- Trine (san he)
- Horse and Dog
- Harmony (liu he)
- Pig
- Opposite (liu chong)
- Monkey
Character of the Tiger
Brave, confident, competitive, and charismatic. Tigers are born leaders who command respect and admiration wherever they go. They are fiercely independent with a magnetic personality that draws others in. Their courage and passion inspire those around them. Tigers love challenges and will fight tirelessly for what they believe in.
Every Tiger Year from 1900 to 2100
17 of them, twelve years apart. Because ten heavenly stems cannot divide evenly among twelve branches, the Tiger only ever meets five of the ten — so the Wood Tiger 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.
1902
Water
1914
Wood
1926
Fire
1938
Earth
1950
Metal
1962
Water
1974
Wood
1986
Fire
1998
Earth
2010
Metal
2022
Water
2034
Wood
2046
Fire
2058
Earth
2070
Metal
2082
Water
2094
Wood
Every Tiger 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 Tiger, 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 Tigers
The Tiger 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 Tiger 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 Tiger is the doubled case; the full set is linked from the headings below.
1914, 1974, 2034, 2094
Wood doubled — the year's stem matches the Tiger's own element, which is why this variant is the one singled out in almanacs.
1926, 1986, 2046
Wood generates Fire, so the Tiger gives to this year rather than drawing from it — productive, and depleting if unchecked.
1938, 1998, 2058
Wood overcomes Earth, so here the sign has the upper hand over its own year.
1950, 2010, 2070
Metal overcomes Wood, making this the variant tradition treats as the tested one — the year works against the sign's own element.
1902, 1962, 2022, 2082
Water generates Wood, so this variant is read as supported: the year feeds what the Tiger already is.
Who the Tiger Matches
Chinese zodiac compatibility is geometry on a circle of twelve, not a list to be memorised. Once you know where the Tiger sits — branch 3 — every claim below can be checked by counting.
San he · the trine · four places apart
Horse and Dog sit four and eight places from the Tiger, 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 idealists of the twelve. These three are read as driven by conviction rather than by advantage: candid to the point of bluntness, uneasy under authority, and loyal to a cause more readily than to an institution. They are the group most often described as needing room, and the one whose faults are said to be faults of excess rather than of calculation.
Liu he · the six harmonies · the fixed partner
Pig. The twelve branches pair off into six couples, and the Tiger'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
Monkey 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. Snake and Pig 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 Tiger
- Numbers:
- 1, 3, 4
- Colours:
- Blue, Grey, Orange
- Flowers:
- Cineraria, Anthurium
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 Tiger
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 Tigers
- Ludwig van Beethoven (1770)
- Queen Elizabeth II (1926)
- Marilyn Monroe (1926)
- Tom Cruise (1962)
- Leonardo DiCaprio (1974)
The birth years are given so the arithmetic can be checked: subtract 4 and divide by 12, and a remainder of 2 is a Tiger. Everyone listed was born after 20 February, the latest the lunar new year can fall, so no boundary question arises.
Ben Ming Nian: the Tiger'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 Tiger that means 2022 and next 2034. 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 Tiger 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 Tiger is an earthly branch and depends only on the year, so everyone born in a Tiger 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.
Tiger FAQs
Which years are Tiger years?
Between 1900 and 2100: 1902, 1914, 1926, 1938, 1950, 1962, 1974, 1986, 1998, 2010, 2022, 2034, 2046, 2058, 2070, 2082, 2094. The Tiger returns every twelve years, so if one of those is your birth year you are a Tiger — 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 Tiger year was 2022 and the next is 2034.
Which signs is the Tiger most compatible with?
Horse and Dog and Pig, and the reason is structural rather than a matter of temperament. Horse and Dog sit four places from the Tiger 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. Pig is the Tiger'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 Tiger?
Monkey, 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; Snake and Pig are the other two commonly named as awkward, being three places away, though popular lists disagree more about those.
What is a Wood Tiger?
The strongest form of the sign, on the traditional reading. Every animal carries a fixed element of its own — the Tiger'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 Tiger that happens in 1914, 1974, 2034 and 2094. Water years (1902, 1962, 2022 and 2082) are held to support it, since Water generates Wood. Metal years (1950, 2010 and 2070) are the tense ones, since Metal overcomes Wood. Written out, a Wood Tiger year is 甲寅 — position 51 of the sixty-year cycle, and every one of them is yang, never the reverse.
If you were born in January of a Tiger year, are you a Tiger?
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 an Ox rather than a Tiger. Anyone born after 20 February is unambiguously a Tiger, 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 Tiger hour?
03:00–05:00. The twelve branches divide the day into double hours as well as the years into a cycle, and the Tiger 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.