2003 Chinese zodiac sign: Water Goat

Chinese year 2003 begins on Saturday, February 1, 2003, and ends on Wednesday, January 21, 2004, the day before the Year of the Wood Monkey begins. It has 355 days, or 12 lunar months: each month starts on a new moon, so it is 29 or 30 days long. The next leap year, with a thirteenth month, comes in 2004.

The year opens with the new moon on Saturday, February 1, 2003 at 5:48 a.m. ET, which is 6:48 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 Saturday, February 15, 2003. The year's first full moon falls on Sunday, February 16, 2003 at 6:51 p.m. ET.

It is year 20 of the sixty-year cycle that began in 1984 with the Wood Rat. In Chinese this year is called 癸未 (guǐwèi): the heavenly stem 癸 gives the element and the earthly branch 未 the animal.

In Ba Zi astrology, the Four Pillars of Destiny, the year 2003 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 Tuesday, February 4, 2003 at 1:06 a.m. Eastern Time. That is 3 days after Chinese New Year, so anyone born between February 1 and that moment already has the Water Goat sign in the lunar calendar but still the Water Horse sign in Ba Zi.

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

The Goat, also called the Sheep or the Ram because its Chinese name, 羊 (yáng), means both goat and sheep, is the sign of sensitivity and imagination. It is gentle and empathetic, with the soul of an artist.

Intuition, flexibility and a gift for persuasion. Water softens a sign and teaches it to go with the flow.

The Water element covers two years in a row, 2002 (yang) and 2003 (yin), and comes back every ten years: before that in 1992–1993, next in 2012–2013.

The Water Goat is the most empathetic version of this sign. Water deepens its intuition, so it senses other people's moods and often becomes its friends' confidant. It is gentle and adapts easily. It is also easily swayed, and setting boundaries is the hardest thing of all for it.

In 2026, people born in 2003 turn 23 years old. The Year of the Fire Horse is running now, which tradition counts as a secret friend's year for the Goat. People born in 2003 reach their next běnmìngnián, the year of their own sign, in 2027, when they turn 24 years old.

The Goat comes back every 12 years, each time with a different element. The exact combination of 2003, the Water Goat, returns every 60 years: in 1943, 2003 and 2063.