Chinese zodiac 1998
Year of the Earth Tiger
28 January 1998 to 15 February 1999
Born in 1998? Your sign depends on the day
The animal changes at Lunar New Year, not on 1 January. In 1998 it falls on 28 January 1998.
- 28 January to 31 December 1998
- 🐅 Earth Tiger
- and on to 15 Feb 1999
Check an exact birth date
The Earth Tiger at a glance
Animal
🐅 Tiger
Said to be bold, confident, competitive.
Element
土 Yang Earth
Linked with stability and patience. Each element rules two years in a row.
Length
384 days
A long year: the calendar adds a thirteenth, leap month.
Other Tiger years
The 60-year cycle
Animal and element line up again only every 60 years. The Earth Tiger years nearest to this one are 1938 and 2058.
Who gets on with the Tiger
Allies
Four years apart. The three animals of a trine are said to share a temperament.
Secret friend
One of six fixed pairs said to complement each other.
Opposite
Six years apart, directly across the wheel. Tradition calls this the hardest pairing.
Friction
One of six fixed pairs said to rub each other the wrong way.
Bonds come from each animal's position among the twelve, as tradition sets them. They describe the Tiger sign in general, not any one person.
Dates are computed estimates from the Hong Kong Observatory's calendar tables, counted in China's time zone. Some traditions change the animal at the start of spring (around 4 February) instead of at Lunar New Year.