Rat personality
Tradition sees the Rat as the zodiac's quick study: alert, resourceful and good at spotting an opportunity before anyone else does. People born in Rat years are read as charming and sociable, careful with money and endlessly adaptable, the kind who can make something out of very little. The character 鼠 covers both rats and mice, and the reading keeps the rodent's reputation for making the most of whatever is at hand.
The shadow side is restlessness and worry. Rats are read as prone to overthinking, a little calculating when they feel insecure, and inclined to hold on to money and grudges alike. Tradition's advice to the Rat is to trust the people who have earned it and to spend some of what it saves.
The Rat in love and friendship
A Rat is read as a devoted partner once committed: protective of family, attentive and full of ideas for a shared future. Tradition's best matches are the Dragon and the Monkey, the Rat's partners in the trio of animals four years apart: the Dragon brings the confidence a Rat admires, and the Monkey matches its wit. The Ox is the Rat's secret friend, one of the six harmonious pairs, read as the steady partner who calms a Rat's nerves.
The Horse sits opposite the Rat, six years away, and the pair is read as the classic clash: the Rat plans and saves while the Horse follows its impulses. The Goat, one of the six harming pairs, is read as too dreamy for a practical Rat. These readings go by animal alone. Tradition also weighs each person's element, and the grid further down links to every other animal's page.
The Rat at work
Tradition expects Rats to do well wherever wits and adaptability pay: business and trading, research, writing, law and any job that rewards spotting a gap and moving fast. They are read as natural networkers and good managers of money. Rigid routine, and work that gives them nothing to figure out, are what tradition expects a Rat to find hardest.
When is the next Year of the Rat?
The next Year of the Rat begins on February 11, 2032 and runs until January 30, 2033. It will be a Water Rat year, 壬子 rénzǐ, the forty-ninth year of the sixty-year cycle; Water is also the Rat's own element, so tradition reads it as the Rat doubled. The last Year of the Rat was a Metal Rat year, from January 25, 2020 to February 11, 2021.
The Rat's double hour, 11 pm to 1 am, straddles midnight, so the Rat begins each day as well as the twelve-year cycle, and its solar month holds the winter solstice.
The Rat in the Great Race
In the best-known story of how the zodiac got its order, the Jade Emperor held a race across a wide river, and the animals took their places in the order they finished. The Rat was too small to swim the current, so it persuaded the good-natured Ox to carry it across. As the Ox reached the far bank, the Rat jumped from its head and landed first. In many tellings the Rat had also failed to wake its friend the Cat, who missed the race altogether, which is why there is no Cat in the Chinese zodiac and why cats chase rats to this day.
When does the Year of the Rat begin?
Each Year of the Rat starts at the Lunar New Year, the new moon that begins the first month of the Chinese calendar, which falls between January 21 and February 20. So Rat years don't line up with calendar years: someone born on February 10, 1996 is a Wood Pig, because the Fire Rat year began nine days later, on February 19. The checker at the top of this page and the Chinese zodiac calculator both allow for this, and the table above gives the first and last day of every Rat year since 1900.
Four Pillars astrology (BaZi) counts the year differently, from Lichun, the start of spring in the solar calendar, around February 4. Its Rat years begin on that day instead, so for a few days either side of the Lunar New Year the two systems can disagree.