The exact dates of the 1931 lunar year
The Metal Goat year ran from February 17, 1931 to February 5, 1932. Twelve lunar months came to 354 days in 1931, eleven or twelve short of the solar year, and that shortfall is what pulls the following new year back towards January.
The 1931 new year fell 18 days later in the Gregorian year than the 1930 one, February 17, 1931 against January 30, 1930. Why the 1931 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Metal Goat pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 1931 is Xin and the branch is the Goat, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 1931 that branch is taken to mean someone gentle and indirect, more determined than the manner suggests. Metal, the element attached to 1931, adds definition, resolve and a preference for clean edges.
1931 is a yin year, the inward half of the Metal pair: 1930 carries the same element in its yang form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 1931 is described as the goat temperament working through definition.
Born in January or early February 1931
From 1 January 1931 to February 16, 1931 the animal in force was still the Horse, not the Goat — 47 days of 1931 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 1931 is a Horse.
The first Goat of 1931 is anyone born on February 17, 1931 or later, and the last one anyone born on February 5, 1932. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, February 17, 1931 is at the later end.
Where 1931 sits in the sixty-year cycle
1931 is position 8 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Xin stem against the Goat branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Metal Goat year was 1871 and the next is 1991.
Someone born in 1871 therefore returned to their own pillar in 1931, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 1931 meets the pairing again in 1991.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Goat of 1931 is grouped with the Rabbit and the Pig, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 1927 and 1935. Its opposition is the Ox, six years on from 1931 in 1937.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 1931 was measured to produce them; 1931 stands four years from 1927 and six from 1937, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 1931
Because the 1931 lunar year opened on February 17, 1931, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, February 5, 1932, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 1931 stays the Goat.
Handbooks equate the Goat of 1931 with Cancer, a pairing that lines up two twelve-part divisions rather than two claims about people. A western sign covers about thirty days, so 1931 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 1931 Metal Goat as a year-long version of Cancer flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 1931 Chinese new year start?
February 17, 1931, and the year ran on to February 5, 1932 — 354 days.
What animal is 1931?
The Goat, in its Metal form, from February 17, 1931 onward; a birth earlier in 1931 is a Horse.
Was 1931 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
No. 1931 ran twelve months and 354 days, so no month was doubled.
I was born in January 1931 — which animal am I?
The Horse, unless you were born on February 17, 1931 or later, which is when the 1931 year began.