The exact dates of the 1955 lunar year
The Wood Goat year ran from January 24, 1955 to February 11, 1956. Those 384 days are longer than a Gregorian year because a leap third month was inserted: 1955 carried thirteen lunar months rather than twelve, the same month number falling twice.
The 1955 new year fell 10 days earlier in the Gregorian year than the 1954 one, January 24, 1955 against February 3, 1954. Why the 1955 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Wood Goat pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 1955 is Yi and the branch is the Goat, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 1955 that branch is taken to mean someone gentle and indirect, more determined than the manner suggests. Wood, the element attached to 1955, adds growth, flexibility and the willingness to keep extending.
1955 is a yin year, the inward half of the Wood pair: 1954 carries the same element in its yang form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 1955 is described as the goat temperament working through growth.
Born in January or early February 1955
From 1 January 1955 to January 23, 1955 the animal in force was still the Horse, not the Goat — 23 days of 1955 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 1955 is a Horse.
The first Goat of 1955 is anyone born on January 24, 1955 or later, and the last one anyone born on February 11, 1956. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, January 24, 1955 is at the early end.
Where 1955 sits in the sixty-year cycle
1955 is position 32 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Yi stem against the Goat branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Wood Goat year was 1895 and the next is 2015.
Someone born in 1895 therefore returned to their own pillar in 1955, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 1955 meets the pairing again in 2015.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Goat of 1955 is grouped with the Rabbit and the Pig, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 1951 and 1959. Its opposition is the Ox, six years on from 1955 in 1961.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 1955 was measured to produce them; 1955 stands four years from 1951 and six from 1961, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 1955
Because the 1955 lunar year opened on January 24, 1955, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, February 11, 1956, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 1955 stays the Goat.
Handbooks equate the Goat of 1955 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 1955 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 1955 Wood Goat as a year-long version of Cancer flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 1955 Chinese new year start?
January 24, 1955, and the year ran on to February 11, 1956 — 384 days.
What animal is 1955?
The Goat, in its Wood form, from January 24, 1955 onward; a birth earlier in 1955 is a Horse.
Was 1955 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
Yes — a leap third month made 1955 thirteen months and 384 days long.
I was born in January 1955 — which animal am I?
The Horse, unless you were born on January 24, 1955 or later, which is when the 1955 year began.