The exact dates of the 1925 lunar year
The Wood Ox year ran from January 24, 1925 to February 12, 1926. Those 385 days are longer than a Gregorian year because a leap fourth month was inserted: 1925 carried thirteen lunar months rather than twelve, the same month number falling twice.
The 1925 new year fell 12 days earlier in the Gregorian year than the 1924 one, January 24, 1925 against February 5, 1924. Why the 1925 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Wood Ox pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 1925 is Yi and the branch is the Ox, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 1925 that branch is taken to mean someone patient and immovable, doing the work whether or not anyone is counting it. Wood, the element attached to 1925, adds growth, flexibility and the willingness to keep extending.
1925 is a yin year, the inward half of the Wood pair: 1924 carries the same element in its yang form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 1925 is described as the ox temperament working through growth.
Born in January or early February 1925
From 1 January 1925 to January 23, 1925 the animal in force was still the Rat, not the Ox — 23 days of 1925 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 1925 is a Rat.
The first Ox of 1925 is anyone born on January 24, 1925 or later, and the last one anyone born on February 12, 1926. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, January 24, 1925 is at the early end.
Where 1925 sits in the sixty-year cycle
1925 is position 2 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Yi stem against the Ox branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Wood Ox year was 1865 and the next is 1985.
Someone born in 1865 therefore returned to their own pillar in 1925, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 1925 meets the pairing again in 1985.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Ox of 1925 is grouped with the Snake and the Rooster, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 1921 and 1929. Its opposition is the Goat, six years on from 1925 in 1931.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 1925 was measured to produce them; 1925 stands four years from 1921 and six from 1931, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 1925
Because the 1925 lunar year opened on January 24, 1925, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, February 12, 1926, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 1925 stays the Ox.
Handbooks equate the Ox of 1925 with Capricorn, a pairing that lines up two twelve-part divisions rather than two claims about people. A western sign covers about thirty days, so 1925 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 1925 Wood Ox as a year-long version of Capricorn flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 1925 Chinese new year start?
January 24, 1925, and the year ran on to February 12, 1926 — 385 days.
What animal is 1925?
The Ox, in its Wood form, from January 24, 1925 onward; a birth earlier in 1925 is a Rat.
Was 1925 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
Yes — a leap fourth month made 1925 thirteen months and 385 days long.
I was born in January 1925 — which animal am I?
The Rat, unless you were born on January 24, 1925 or later, which is when the 1925 year began.