1980 Chinese Zodiac: Year of the Metal Monkey (and Early-Year Goat Dates)

By Astrolivo editorial team

In the Chinese calendar, 1980 is primarily the Year of the Metal Monkey (Geng-shen), running inclusively from February 16, 1980 through February 4, 1981. Because the traditional calendar is lunisolar, the zodiac sign does not change on January 1. If you were born between January 1 and February 15, 1980, your birthday falls in the closing weeks of the previous lunar year—the Year of the Goat (also translated as Sheep).

1980 Birth-Date Lookup

Check your exact birth date against the inclusive civil Lunar New Year boundaries below:

Birth Date Range (Inclusive)	Zodiac Animal	1980 Year Stem & Element
January 1, 1980 – February 15, 1980	Goat (previous lunar year)	Preceding year cycle (ends Feb 15, 1980)
February 16, 1980 – February 4, 1981	Monkey	`Geng-shen` — Metal Monkey

Why the Gregorian Year 1980 Alone Is Not Enough

Because the Chinese lunisolar calendar reconciles lunar months with the solar year, Lunar New Year falls on different Gregorian dates each year—and in 1980, it arrived relatively late on February 16. Using a simple year-only chart misclassifies the first six and a half weeks of 1980.

Consider a hypothetical comparison: if Person A is born on February 5, 1980, and Person B is born on February 20, 1980, both have a 1980 birth year. However, Person A was born before Lunar New Year and belongs to the Goat year, while Person B was born after February 16 and belongs to the Metal Monkey year.

Why 1980 Is a Metal Monkey Year

The Chinese calendar pairs 10 Heavenly Stems with 12 Earthly Branches (animals) to produce a 60-year sexagenary cycle starting with Jia-zi. While the Monkey appears every 12 years, it does not carry the same element every time; the specific Metal Monkey (Geng-shen) combination repeats only once every 60 years.

For the lunar year beginning February 16, 1980, the Heavenly Stem is Geng, which corresponds to Metal in traditional five-phase (Wu Xing) mapping (Jia/Yi = Wood, Bing/Ding = Fire, Wu/Ji = Earth, Geng/Xin = Metal, Ren/Gui = Water), paired with the branch shen (Monkey).

How This Differs from Western Sun Signs and Four Pillars (`BaZi`)

Western Sun Signs: Western tropical astrology divides the solar year into 12 monthly signs based on the Sun's position, whereas the Chinese zodiac assigns an animal to an entire lunisolar year.
Four Pillars (BaZi): This reference uses the civil Lunar New Year boundary. Traditional Four Pillars (BaZi) systems calculate pillars for the birth year, month, day, and hour and typically switch the year pillar at Li Chun (solar spring, in early February) rather than on Lunar New Year Day.

Methodology and Sources

This page is a calendar lookup reference, not a personality reading or forecast. Inclusive start and end dates and the Geng-shen designation come from the official Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) Gregorian-lunar conversion tables (T1980e.txt and T1981e.txt), anchored to the 60-year stem-branch sequence (Jia-zi 1984). Five-phase stem mappings follow standard cultural correspondence (Yoo & Yoon, 2019, DOI: 10.14369/jkmc.2019.32.2.017), with calendar background from the Victoria and Albert Museum and Royal Museums Greenwich. Visit the Chinese Zodiac overview to explore all 12 signs and other birth years.