1947 Chinese Zodiac: Year of the Fire Pig

By Astrolivo editorial team

In the Chinese lunisolar calendar, 1947 is the Year of the Fire Pig (Ding-hai), spanning January 22, 1947 to February 9, 1948 (inclusive). Because the Chinese year begins on Lunar New Year rather than January 1, anyone born between January 1 and January 21, 1947 belongs to the preceding year of the Dog rather than the Pig.

1947 Birth Date Lookup

Check the inclusive date ranges below to match a 1947 birth date to its corresponding Lunar New Year animal:

Gregorian Birth Date Range (Inclusive)	Chinese Zodiac Animal	Year Designation
January 1, 1947 – January 21, 1947	Dog	Previous lunar year (ending prior to 1947 Lunar New Year)
January 22, 1947 – February 9, 1948	Pig	Ding-hai (Fire Pig)

Why the Gregorian Year Alone Is Not Enough

Because the Chinese calendar coordinates lunar months with the solar year, Lunar New Year shifts across late January and mid-February in the Gregorian calendar. Relying solely on the birth year 1947 misses the January 22 transition.

As an illustrative example, consider two hypothetical births in 1947: someone born on January 10, 1947 falls before Lunar New Year and is born in the Dog year. Someone born on January 28, 1947 falls after the January 22 boundary and is born in the Fire Pig year.

Stem, Branch, and Five-Phase Element

The Chinese calendar names years using a 60-year cycle (sexagenary cycle) that combines ten heavenly stems with twelve earthly branches. Although the Pig recurs every 12 years, it is not paired with the same element every 12 years; the specific Fire Pig (Ding-hai) designation returns once every 60 years.

For the lunar year beginning January 22, 1947:

Heavenly stem: Ding, mapped to the Fire phase in traditional five-phase (Wu Xing) classification.
Earthly branch: Hai, paired with the Pig.

In historical context, the twelve animals functioned as a calendar-keeping convention long before modern popular horoscope traditions linked birth years to personality traits.

How This Differs from Western Sun Signs and Four Pillars

It is helpful to separate this calendar lookup from two other systems:

Western Sun signs: Western astrology tracks the Sun's annual path through twelve zodiac signs lasting roughly a month each, whereas the Chinese zodiac assigns an animal to an entire lunisolar year.
Four Pillars (BaZi): A full Four Pillars chart calculates four pillars (year, month, day, and hour) and switches the year pillar at the solar term Li Chun (start of spring). This reference page uses the civil Lunar New Year boundary for standard year lookup and is not a BaZi calculation.

For the complete twelve-animal order and 60-year cycle explanation, see the Chinese Zodiac guide.

Methodology and Sources

The start and end dates and the Ding-hai year header come from the official Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) civil Gregorian-lunar calendar conversion tables for 1947 and 1948. The five-phase stem mapping (Ding = Fire) follows HKO stem-and-branch tables and peer-reviewed documentation of traditional stem correspondence (Yoo & Yoon, 2019, JKMC, DOI: 10.14369/jkmc.2019.32.2.017). Cycle history and lunisolar calendar background are drawn from the Victoria and Albert Museum and Royal Museums Greenwich.