The exact dates of the 1948 lunar year
The Earth Rat year ran from February 10, 1948 to January 28, 1949. Twelve lunar months came to 354 days in 1948, eleven or twelve short of the solar year, and that shortfall is what pulls the following new year back towards January.
The 1948 new year fell 19 days later in the Gregorian year than the 1947 one, February 10, 1948 against January 22, 1947. Why the 1948 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Earth Rat pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 1948 is Wu and the branch is the Rat, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 1948 that branch is taken to mean someone resourceful and quick to spot an opening, with a strong instinct for what is scarce. Earth, the element attached to 1948, adds steadiness, patience and an attachment to what is already built.
1948 is a yang year, the outward half of the Earth pair: 1949 carries the same element in its yin form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 1948 is described as the rat temperament working through steadiness.
Born in January or early February 1948
From 1 January 1948 to February 9, 1948 the animal in force was still the Pig, not the Rat — 40 days of 1948 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 1948 is a Pig.
The first Rat of 1948 is anyone born on February 10, 1948 or later, and the last one anyone born on January 28, 1949. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, February 10, 1948 is at the later end.
Where 1948 sits in the sixty-year cycle
1948 is position 25 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Wu stem against the Rat branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Earth Rat year was 1888 and the next is 2008.
Someone born in 1888 therefore returned to their own pillar in 1948, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 1948 meets the pairing again in 2008.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Rat of 1948 is grouped with the Dragon and the Monkey, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 1944 and 1952. Its opposition is the Horse, six years on from 1948 in 1954.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 1948 was measured to produce them; 1948 stands four years from 1944 and six from 1954, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 1948
Because the 1948 lunar year opened on February 10, 1948, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, January 28, 1949, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 1948 stays the Rat.
Handbooks equate the Rat of 1948 with Sagittarius, a pairing that lines up two twelve-part divisions rather than two claims about people. A western sign covers about thirty days, so 1948 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 1948 Earth Rat as a year-long version of Sagittarius flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 1948 Chinese new year start?
February 10, 1948, and the year ran on to January 28, 1949 — 354 days.
What animal is 1948?
The Rat, in its Earth form, from February 10, 1948 onward; a birth earlier in 1948 is a Pig.
Was 1948 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
No. 1948 ran twelve months and 354 days, so no month was doubled.
I was born in January 1948 — which animal am I?
The Pig, unless you were born on February 10, 1948 or later, which is when the 1948 year began.