1987 Chinese Zodiac: Year of the Fire Rabbit (and Early-Year Tiger Dates)
By Astrolivo editorial team
In the Chinese lunisolar calendar, most of 1987 is the Year of the Fire Rabbit (Ding-mao), which runs inclusively from January 29, 1987, to February 16, 1988. If your birth date falls between January 1, 1987, and January 28, 1987, you were born before the Lunar New Year and belong to the preceding Tiger year (Bing-yin, Fire Tiger).
1987 Birth-Date Lookup
Match your exact birth date to the inclusive civil Lunar New Year periods below:
Why the Gregorian Year 1987 Is Not Enough
Because the Chinese calendar is lunisolar—combining lunar phase cycles with the solar year—the new zodiac year does not begin on January 1. In 1987, the Lunar New Year fell relatively early on January 29, leaving the first four weeks of January in the previous animal year.
Compare two hypothetical births in January 1987:
- Hypothetical Example A: Someone born on January 18, 1987, was born eleven days before the Lunar New Year. Under the civil lunar-year convention, their zodiac sign is the Fire Tiger.
- Hypothetical Example B: Someone born on January 30, 1987, was born the day after Lunar New Year and belongs to the Fire Rabbit year.
How the Fire Element and 60-Year Cycle Work
Traditional Chinese calendar reckoning combines ten Heavenly Stems with twelve Earthly Branches (the twelve zodiac animals) to form a 60-year cycle starting with Jia-zi (1984).
The 1987 lunar year is designated Ding-mao:
- Stem (Ding): Maps to the Fire phase in traditional five-phase correspondence (Bing and Ding both represent Fire).
- Branch (Mao): Corresponds to the Rabbit.
While the Rabbit appears every 12 years, each 12-year return pairs with a different stem element. The full Fire Rabbit (Ding-mao) designation repeats only once every 60 years.
How This Differs from Western Sun Signs and Four Pillars (BaZi)
This reference tracks the traditional lunisolar calendar naming system (attested in Chinese history since the Han dynasty) and should not be confused with other astrological methods:
- Western Tropical Sun Signs: Western astrology assigns twelve signs across the solar year based on the Sun's tropical ecliptic longitude, whereas the Chinese zodiac assigns one animal and stem element to a full lunisolar year.
- Four Pillars (BaZi): This lookup uses the civil Lunar New Year boundary. Traditional Four Pillars (BaZi) astrology instead shifts the year pillar at the solar term Li Chun (around February 4) and calculates additional pillars for the birth month, day, and hour.
Browse all twelve signs and other birth years on the Chinese Zodiac overview.
Methodology and Sources
Exact start and end dates and the Ding-mao year header come from the Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) civil Gregorian-lunar conversion tables (T1987e.txt and T1988e.txt) and HKO Stems and Branches documentation. The cultural five-phase stem correspondence (Ding = Fire) follows standard traditional mapping (documented in Yoo & Yoon, 2019, JKMC, DOI: 10.14369/jkmc.2019.32.2.017). Calendar and historical context draws on the Victoria and Albert Museum and Royal Museums Greenwich.