1998 Chinese Zodiac Year: Earth Tiger (and January Ox Dates)

By Astrolivo editorial team

In the Chinese lunisolar calendar convention, the Earth Tiger (Wu-yin) year spans January 28, 1998 through February 15, 1999 (inclusive). Anyone born from January 1, 1998 through January 27, 1998 (inclusive) was born before Lunar New Year and belongs to the preceding Ox year.

1998 Birth-Date Lookup Table

Because the lunar year changes in late January, check your full birth date against the inclusive ranges below in the Chinese zodiac reference:

Why the Gregorian Year Alone Is Not Enough

The Gregorian calendar always begins on January 1, but the traditional Chinese calendar is lunisolar, aligning lunar months with the solar year so that Lunar New Year falls between late January and mid-February. In 1998, Lunar New Year arrived on January 28, splitting January births across two zodiac signs.

As a hypothetical illustration, consider two people born in January 1998: someone born on January 19, 1998 was born nine days before Lunar New Year and belongs to the Ox year, whereas someone born on January 28, 1998 was born on Lunar New Year's Day and belongs to the Earth Tiger year.

The 1998 Stem and Element Convention (Wu-Yin)

Traditional Chinese timekeeping combines ten heavenly stems with twelve earthly branches in a 60-year sexagenary cycle anchored in modern tables at 1984 (Jia-zi). While the Tiger branch (yin) recurs every 12 years, it does not carry the same element in every cycle; the full Wu-yin Earth Tiger name repeats only once every 60 years.

For the lunar year starting January 28, 1998, the stem-branch pair is Wu-yin. In traditional five-phase (wu xing) stem correspondence, the fifth stem Wu maps to Earth, and the branch yin maps to the Tiger. This pairing is a historical calendar convention rather than an empirical personality measurement.

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

• Western Sun signs: Western tropical astrology divides the year into twelve roughly month-long signs based on the Sun's seasonal position, whereas this lookup tracks an entire lunisolar year.
• Four Pillars (BaZi): This page uses the civil Lunar New Year boundary. Classical Four Pillars practice typically transitions the year pillar at Li Chun (the solar term marking the start of spring) and constructs a chart from the birth year, month, day, and hour.

Methodology and Sources

Inclusive date boundaries and the Wu-yin year header come from the official Hong Kong Observatory Gregorian-Lunar Calendar Conversion Tables for 1998 and 1999, alongside the Observatory's 60-year stem-branch tables. The cultural correspondence between the Wu stem and Earth is confirmed in Yoo and Yoon (2019, DOI: 10.14369/jkmc.2019.32.2.017). Historical context distinguishing calendar naming traditions from modern horoscope readings draws on the Victoria and Albert Museum and Royal Museums Greenwich.