Chinese zodiac
Rooster
Rooster — You, the 10th of the twelve earthly branches. It comes round every twelve years, each time with the next of the five elements, so the same animal and element meet again every sixty years.
The character 鸡 means chicken of either sex; Rooster is the usual English name, originally American, and Cock the older British one. The branch's double hour is early evening rather than dawn, so the one thing everyone knows about a rooster is not what the hour commemorates; the usual folk explanation is that it is the hour hens go to roost.
The Rooster's earthly branch
The branch, You (酉), is older than the Rooster and names more than a year: it is also one of the twelve double hours of the traditional day, a month of the Chinese solar year and a point of the compass.
- Branch
- You 酉The 10th of twelve. The animal is written 鸡.
- Polarity
- YinPaired only with the yin stems, so every Rooster year starts in an odd-numbered calendar year.
- Element of the branch
- MetalThe Rooster's own, the same every year. The element in the table below belongs to the year.
- Double hour
- 17:00–19:00Read today off the local clock. Traditionally kept by the sun, so noon fell in the middle of the Horse's double hour.
- Solar month opens
- 7 September 2026At Bailu, White Dew, when the sun reaches 165°. Beijing time, that has been 7, 8 or 9 September in every year from 1920 to 2026.
- Bearing
- 270°Due west.
- Triad
- Ox, Snake, RoosterThe three branches four apart, which the tradition groups under Metal.
- Opposite
- RabbitSix places on: the opposite hour, month and bearing.
The hours, bearings, triads and branch elements are the standard correspondences of the earthly branches. The month dates are worked out here from the sun's position, on the Beijing calendar, for every year from 1920 to 2026. What the solar terms are →
A January or early-February birthday can belong to the year before
The Year of the Rooster does not begin on 1 January. In 2017 it began on 28 January. A baby born on 1 January 2017 — before that date — would be a Monkey, not a Rooster.
The new year falls between 21 January and 20 February, and until it arrives the previous animal is still in charge. Each year's own date is in the table below.
Every year of the Rooster since 1920
| Year | Began on | Element |
|---|---|---|
| 1921 | 8 February | Metal Rooster |
| 1933 | 26 January | Water Rooster |
| 1945 | 13 February | Wood Rooster |
| 1957 | 31 January | Fire Rooster |
| 1969 | 17 February | Earth Rooster |
| 1981 | 5 February | Metal Rooster |
| 1993 | 23 January | Water Rooster |
| 2005 | 9 February | Wood Rooster |
| 2017 | 28 January | Fire Rooster |
The animal repeats every twelve years; the element repeats every ten, so the same pairing — such as Fire Rooster — is sixty years apart.