2022 Chinese zodiac sign: Water Tiger

Chinese year 2022 begins on Tuesday, February 1, 2022, and ends on Saturday, January 21, 2023, the day before the Year of the Water Rabbit 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 2023.

The year opens with the new moon on Tuesday, February 1, 2022 at 12:46 a.m. ET, which is 1:46 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 Tuesday, February 15, 2022. The year's first full moon falls on Wednesday, February 16, 2022 at 11:57 a.m. ET.

It is year 39 of the sixty-year cycle that began in 1984 with the Wood Rat. In Chinese this year is called 壬寅 (rényín): the heavenly stem 壬 gives the element and the earthly branch 寅 the animal.

In Ba Zi astrology, the Four Pillars of Destiny, the year 2022 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 Thursday, February 3, 2022 at 3:50 p.m. Eastern Time. That is 2 days after Chinese New Year, so anyone born between February 1 and that moment already has the Water Tiger sign in the lunar calendar but still the Metal Ox sign in Ba Zi.

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

The Tiger is the sign of courage and energy. It loves a challenge, has a strong sense of justice and stands up for the underdog, even when it costs it.

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, 2022 (yang) and 2023 (yin), and comes back every ten years: before that in 2012–2013, next in 2032–2033.

The Water Tiger is the calmest of its family. Water gives it empathy and the ability to listen, so it understands others better and acts on impulse less often. It still loves freedom and challenges, but it picks them with more judgment. On the other hand, it sometimes hesitates where another Tiger would have leaped long ago.

In 2026, people born in 2022 turn 4 years old. The Year of the Fire Horse is running now, which tradition counts as an ally's year from the same trine for the Tiger. People born in 2022 reach their next běnmìngnián, the year of their own sign, in 2034, when they turn 12 years old.

The Tiger comes back every 12 years, each time with a different element. The exact combination of 2022, the Water Tiger, returns every 60 years: in 1962, 2022 and 2082.