Year of the Monkey in the Chinese Zodiac: Verified Dates, Elements, and Cycle

By Astrolivo editorial team

In the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar, the Monkey corresponds to the ninth Earthly Branch, Shen (申), following the Goat and preceding the Rooster in the twelve-animal sequence. Because the Chinese calendar aligns lunar phases with the solar year, a Year of the Monkey does not start on January 1. Instead, it begins on Lunar New Year in late January or February and runs until the eve of the next Lunar New Year.

In the verified Hong Kong Observatory conversion tables covered on this page, the Year of the Monkey includes 1968 (January 30, 1968 to February 16, 1969), 1980 (February 16, 1980 to February 4, 1981), 1992 (February 4, 1992 to January 22, 1993), and 2004 (January 22, 2004 to February 8, 2005). These four years are verified examples rather than an exhaustive list of every Monkey year in history.

Verified Example Monkey Years and Exact Date Boundaries

The table below lists only the Monkey years verified in our Hong Kong Observatory dataset. It is non-exhaustive; the twelve-year animal sequence and sixty-year stem-branch cycle continue before 1968 and after 2004, so earlier or later Monkey years exist outside this sample.

How to Check January and February Birth Dates

Matching only the four-digit Gregorian year of your birth can produce the wrong zodiac animal if your birthday falls in January or February. To verify whether a birth date belongs to one of the listed Monkey years, compare the full date (year, month, and day) against the start and end columns:

1. Born before Lunar New Year in a Monkey year: If a date falls between January 1 and the day before that year's Lunar New Year, it belongs to the preceding Year of the Goat. For example, in a hypothetical case where someone is born on February 10, 1980, the 1980 Lunar New Year had not yet occurred (it fell on February 16, 1980). Under the civil lunar calendar convention, February 10, 1980 belongs to the 1979 Earth Goat year (Ji-wei), which ran from January 28, 1979 through February 15, 1980.
2. Born on or after Lunar New Year through December 31: If a hypothetical birth date is February 16, 1980, it falls on the opening day of the Geng-shen Metal Monkey year and belongs to the Monkey.
3. Born in early January or February of the following Gregorian year: Each lunar year extends into the start of the next Gregorian year. For example, in a hypothetical case where a person is born on January 20, 1993, that date falls before the 1993 Rooster Lunar New Year (January 23, 1993). Because the 1992 Ren-shen Water Monkey year ran from February 4, 1992 through January 22, 1993, a birthday on January 20, 1993 is still in the Year of the Monkey.

To inspect a single year's boundary in isolation, follow the corresponding year detail link in the table—such as the 1968 year lookup, 1980 year lookup, 1992 year lookup, or 2004 year lookup—or return to the Chinese zodiac overview to compare adjacent years.

Where the Monkey Fits in the 12-Year and 60-Year Cycles

In the standard twelve-animal order—Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep/Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig—the Monkey occupies the ninth position:

• 8th position: Goat / Sheep (Wei)
• 9th position: Monkey (Shen)
• 10th position: Rooster (You)

In traditional Chinese timekeeping, this twelve-animal sequence represents the twelve Earthly Branches, which pair sequentially with the ten Heavenly Stems (Jia, Yi, Bing, Ding, Wu, Ji, Geng, Xin, Ren, Gui) to form a repeating sixty-year sexagenary cycle beginning with Jia-Zi (such as the cycle anchored on February 2, 1984).

Because ten stems and twelve branches have the same parity, the ninth branch (Shen) only ever combines with the five odd-numbered stems (Wu, Geng, Ren, Jia, and Bing). Under the five-element (Wu Xing) stem mapping—where Jia/Yi correspond to Wood, Bing/Ding to Fire, Wu/Ji to Earth, Geng/Xin to Metal, and Ren/Gui to Water—successive Monkey years cycle through the five phases every twelve years and repeat the exact stem-branch combination every sixty years.

In the verified sample table above, you can trace four steps of this rotation directly:

• 1968 (Wu-shen): The stem Wu maps to Earth, designating an Earth Monkey year.
• 1980 (Geng-shen): Twelve years later, the stem advances two positions to Geng, which maps to Metal.
• 1992 (Ren-shen): The next Monkey year pairs Shen with Ren, which maps to Water.
• 2004 (Jia-shen): After resetting past the tenth stem (Gui), the sequence returns to the first stem, Jia, which maps to Wood.

A Fire Monkey year (Bing-shen) also exists within the full sixty-year sexagenary structure when the stem Bing pairs with Shen, though no Fire Monkey year is included in the verified table excerpt on this page.

Cultural Context and Interpretive Limits

Historical and museum scholarship—including curatorship at the Victoria and Albert Museum—notes that animal-year representation in China appears in Han-period historical records and Tang-dynasty funerary figures, while popular tales such as the folklore race explaining the twelve-animal order are storytelling traditions rather than historical fact. Over time, a calendar-naming convention for tracking years became distinct from later popular practices that use birth-year animals for personality descriptions.

When using this reference page, keep three methodological boundaries in mind:

1. Civil Lunar New Year vs. Four Pillars (BaZi): The dates on this page follow the civil Gregorian-lunar calendar conversion convention, where the year animal changes on Lunar New Year. Traditional Four Pillars (BaZi) astrology calculates pillars for the year, month, day, and birth hour and typically switches the annual pillar at the solar term Li Chun (Start of Spring, usually around early February) rather than Lunar New Year. A civil birth-year animal lookup is not a full Four Pillars chart calculation.
2. Chinese Zodiac vs. Western Tropical Astrology: The Year of the Monkey tracks a lunisolar calendar cycle, whereas a Western Sun sign or natal chart tracks planetary positions along the tropical ecliptic calculated from an exact birth date, time, and geographic location.
3. Symbolic Tradition, Not Personality Measurement: Astrology and calendar symbolism are interpretive cultural traditions, not scientifically validated tools for measuring character or predicting events. This reference page documents verified calendar boundaries and stem-element designations; it does not assign fixed personality traits, lucky numbers, relationship compatibility scores, or medical, legal, or financial outcomes to people born in a Monkey year.

Methodology and Sources

Gregorian start and end dates, stem-branch headers, and animal designations for 1968, 1980, 1992, and 2004 are taken from the official Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) Gregorian-Lunar Calendar Conversion Tables (T1968e.txt through T1969e.txt, T1980e.txt through T1981e.txt, T1992e.txt through T1993e.txt, and T2004e.txt through T2005e.txt), cross-referenced with HKO's documentation on the ten Heavenly Stems and twelve Earthly Branches anchored by the 1984 Jia-Zi year. The five-element correspondence of the Heavenly Stems (Jia/Yi Wood, Bing/Ding Fire, Wu/Ji Earth, Geng/Xin Metal, Ren/Gui Water) follows the cultural stem-mapping documented in Yoo and Yoon (2019, Journal of Korean Medical Classics, DOI: 10.14369/jkmc.2019.32.2.017, abstract), used strictly for calendar nomenclature without importing medical theories or health claims. Historical and calendrical background is informed by the Victoria and Albert Museum (The Lunar Zodiac, updated April 17, 2024) and Royal Museums Greenwich.

Frequently Asked Questions

If I was born in January 1980, am I a Monkey or a Goat?

Under the Hong Kong Observatory civil lunar calendar, the 1980 Year of the Monkey (Geng-shen) did not begin until February 16, 1980. Any birth date from January 1, 1980 through February 15, 1980 falls before Lunar New Year and belongs to the 1979 Earth Goat year (Ji-wei), which started on January 28, 1979.

Are 1968, 1980, 1992, and 2004 the only Monkey years?

No. Those four years are the verified example rows supplied in our reference dataset. Because the twelve Earthly Branches repeat every twelve years within a sixty-year stem-branch cycle, Monkey years also occur at twelve-year intervals before 1968 and after 2004 (for example, between the 2015 Goat year and the 2017 Rooster year).

Why is 1980 called a Metal Monkey while 1992 is a Water Monkey?

Each lunar year combines one of the ten Heavenly Stems with one of the twelve Earthly Branches. In 1980, the Monkey branch (Shen) paired with the stem Geng (Geng-shen), which corresponds to Metal. Twelve years later in 1992, Shen paired with the stem Ren (Ren-shen), which corresponds to Water.

Where can I check the animals right before and after the Monkey?

In the twelve-animal cycle, the eighth animal immediately before the Monkey is the Goat, and the tenth animal immediately after the Monkey is the Rooster. You can also view all twelve branches and lookup rules on the Chinese zodiac hub.