2001 Chinese zodiac sign: Metal Snake

Chinese year 2001 begins on Wednesday, January 24, 2001, and ends on Monday, February 11, 2002, the day before the Year of the Water Horse begins. It has a full 384 days, because it is a leap year with 13 lunar months; the next one comes in 2004. The Chinese calendar adds the extra month roughly every two or three years so that it doesn't drift away from the seasons.

The year opens with the new moon on Wednesday, January 24, 2001 at 8:07 a.m. ET, which is 9:07 p.m. China Standard Time, so the date is the same in New York and in Beijing.

The Lantern Festival, which closes the New Year celebrations, comes on the fifteenth day of the first month, so on Wednesday, February 7, 2001. The year's first full moon falls on Thursday, February 8, 2001 at 2:12 a.m. ET.

It is year 18 of the sixty-year cycle that began in 1984 with the Wood Rat. In Chinese this year is called 辛巳 (xīnsì): the heavenly stem 辛 gives the element and the earthly branch 巳 the animal.

In Ba Zi astrology, the Four Pillars of Destiny, the year 2001 begins not at the lunar New Year but at the moment of lìchūn (立春, “start of spring”), when the Sun reaches 315° of ecliptic longitude: on Saturday, February 3, 2001 at 1:29 p.m. Eastern Time. That is 10 days after Chinese New Year, so anyone born between January 24 and that moment already has the Metal Snake sign in the lunar calendar but still the Metal Dragon sign in Ba Zi.

This page and the calculator give your sign by the lunar calendar.

The Snake is the sign of wisdom and intuition. It observes quietly, analyzes and acts only once it understands the situation well, and then it is rarely wrong.

Determination, principles and a clear goal. Metal tempers a sign: it adds willpower, but can make it unbending.

The Metal element covers two years in a row, 2000 (yang) and 2001 (yin), and comes back every ten years: before that in 1990–1991, next in 2010–2011.

Metal sharpens the Snake's intelligence and will. The Metal Snake is independent, ambitious and carries out its plans steadily, without revealing them to anyone ahead of time. It has refined taste and firm principles. It finds it hard to show its feelings, so it can come across as cold and aloof.

In 2026, people born in 2001 turn 25 years old. The Year of the Fire Horse is running now, which tradition counts as a year with no special tie for the Snake. People born in 2001 reach their next běnmìngnián, the year of their own sign, in 2037, when they turn 36 years old.

The Snake comes back every 12 years, each time with a different element. The exact combination of 2001, the Metal Snake, returns every 60 years: in 1941, 2001 and 2061.