2021 Chinese zodiac sign: Metal Ox

Chinese year 2021 begins on Friday, February 12, 2021, and ends on Monday, January 31, 2022, the day before the Year of the Water Tiger begins. It has 354 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 2023.

The year opens with the new moon on Thursday, February 11, 2021 at 2:06 p.m. ET. In Beijing it is already February 12, 3:06 a.m. China Standard Time, and the Beijing date sets New Year's Day, so the new year begins on February 12.

The Lantern Festival, which closes the New Year celebrations, comes on the fifteenth day of the first month, so on Friday, February 26, 2021. The year's first full moon falls on Saturday, February 27, 2021 at 3:17 a.m. ET.

It is year 38 of the sixty-year cycle that began in 1984 with the Wood Rat. In Chinese this year is called 辛丑 (xīnchǒu): the heavenly stem 辛 gives the element and the earthly branch 丑 the animal.

In Ba Zi astrology, the Four Pillars of Destiny, the year 2021 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 Wednesday, February 3, 2021 at 9:59 a.m. Eastern Time. That is 9 days before Chinese New Year, so anyone born between that moment and February 11 still has the Metal Rat sign in the lunar calendar but already the Metal Ox sign in Ba Zi.

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

The Ox, called the Buffalo in some sources, is the sign of perseverance. It works patiently, keeps its word and doesn't quit halfway, even when everyone else gave up long ago.

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, 2020 (yang) and 2021 (yin), and comes back every ten years: before that in 2010–2011, next in 2030–2031.

The Metal Ox is the toughest Ox of all. It has iron discipline and clear principles and rarely strays from its chosen path, which makes it effective like few others. Its loyalty needs no words. Still, the people close to it would sometimes like to hear more about what it feels, because Metal makes it keep its emotions under lock and key.

In 2026, people born in 2021 turn 5 years old. The Year of the Fire Horse is running now, which tradition counts as a year with no special tie for the Ox. People born in 2021 reach their next běnmìngnián, the year of their own sign, in 2033, when they turn 12 years old.

The Ox comes back every 12 years, each time with a different element. The exact combination of 2021, the Metal Ox, returns every 60 years: in 1961, 2021 and 2081.