1967 Chinese Zodiac: Year of the Fire Goat

By Astrolivo editorial team

In the Chinese lunisolar calendar, 1967 is the Year of the Fire Goat (Ding-wei), spanning February 9, 1967 to January 29, 1968 (inclusive). Because Lunar New Year fell on February 9 in 1967, anyone born between January 1 and February 8, 1967 belongs to the preceding year of the Horse rather than the Goat.

1967 Birth Date Lookup

Check your exact Gregorian birth date against the inclusive ranges below:

Gregorian Birth Date Range (Inclusive)	Chinese Zodiac Animal	Year Designation
January 1, 1967 – February 8, 1967	Horse	Previous lunar year (ending prior to 1967 Lunar New Year)
February 9, 1967 – January 29, 1968	Goat	Ding-wei (Fire Goat)

Why the Gregorian Year Alone Is Not Enough

Because the Chinese calendar is lunisolar—tracking both lunar phases and the solar year—Lunar New Year moves between late January and mid-February on the civil calendar. Relying on the four-digit birth year 1967 alone misclassifies anyone born in January or the first eight days of February.

For a concrete hypothetical comparison: a person born on January 25, 1967 falls before the February 9 Lunar New Year transition and belongs to the Horse year. Another person born on February 18, 1967 falls after the transition and belongs to the Fire Goat year.

Stem, Branch, and Five-Phase Element

The Chinese calendar names years using a 60-year cycle (sexagenary cycle) that pairs ten heavenly stems with twelve earthly branches. Although this animal branch returns every 12 years, it does not carry the same element every 12 years—the specific Fire Goat (Ding-wei) combination repeats only once every 60 years.

For the lunar year starting February 9, 1967:

Heavenly stem: Ding, mapped to the Fire phase in traditional five-phase (Wu Xing) correspondence.
Earthly branch: Wei, mapped to the Goat (often translated interchangeably as Sheep or Goat for the same Wei branch in English reference conventions).

Historically, the twelve animals were used to name calendar years centuries before popular traditions treated birth years as personality descriptions.

How This Differs from Western Sun Signs and Four Pillars

This lookup differs from two other astrological frameworks:

Western Sun signs: Western tropical astrology divides the year into twelve approximately month-long signs along the Sun's ecliptic path, while the Chinese zodiac assigns one animal to a full lunisolar year.
Four Pillars (BaZi): Traditional Four Pillars astrology shifts the year pillar at the solar term Li Chun (start of spring) and evaluates the year together with the month, day, and hour pillars. This page uses the civil Lunar New Year boundary for standard year-animal lookup and is not a Four Pillars calculation.

For the full twelve-animal sequence and 60-year cycle guide, see the Chinese Zodiac overview.

Methodology and Sources

Start and end dates and the Ding-wei (year of the Goat) header are verified from the official Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) civil Gregorian-lunar conversion tables for 1967 and 1968. The five-phase stem correspondence (Ding = Fire) follows HKO stem-and-branch references and peer-reviewed documentation (Yoo & Yoon, 2019, JKMC, DOI: 10.14369/jkmc.2019.32.2.017). Notes on the lunisolar cycle and Sheep/Goat branch naming draw from the Victoria and Albert Museum and Royal Museums Greenwich.