The exact dates of the 1959 lunar year
The Earth Pig year ran from February 8, 1959 to January 27, 1960. Twelve lunar months came to 354 days in 1959, eleven or twelve short of the solar year, and that shortfall is what pulls the following new year back towards January.
The 1959 new year fell 10 days earlier in the Gregorian year than the 1958 one, February 8, 1959 against February 18, 1958. Why the 1959 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Earth Pig pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 1959 is Ji and the branch is the Pig, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 1959 that branch is taken to mean someone generous and unguarded, taking people at their word for longer than is wise. Earth, the element attached to 1959, adds steadiness, patience and an attachment to what is already built.
1959 is a yin year, the inward half of the Earth pair: 1958 carries the same element in its yang form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 1959 is described as the pig temperament working through steadiness.
Born in January or early February 1959
From 1 January 1959 to February 7, 1959 the animal in force was still the Dog, not the Pig — 38 days of 1959 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 1959 is a Dog.
The first Pig of 1959 is anyone born on February 8, 1959 or later, and the last one anyone born on January 27, 1960. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, February 8, 1959 is at the later end.
Where 1959 sits in the sixty-year cycle
1959 is position 36 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Ji stem against the Pig branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Earth Pig year was 1899 and the next is 2019.
Someone born in 1899 therefore returned to their own pillar in 1959, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 1959 meets the pairing again in 2019.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Pig of 1959 is grouped with the Rabbit and the Goat, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 1955 and 1963. Its opposition is the Snake, six years on from 1959 in 1965.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 1959 was measured to produce them; 1959 stands four years from 1955 and six from 1965, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 1959
Because the 1959 lunar year opened on February 8, 1959, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, January 27, 1960, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 1959 stays the Pig.
Handbooks equate the Pig of 1959 with Scorpio, a pairing that lines up two twelve-part divisions rather than two claims about people. A western sign covers about thirty days, so 1959 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 1959 Earth Pig as a year-long version of Scorpio flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 1959 Chinese new year start?
February 8, 1959, and the year ran on to January 27, 1960 — 354 days.
What animal is 1959?
The Pig, in its Earth form, from February 8, 1959 onward; a birth earlier in 1959 is a Dog.
Was 1959 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
No. 1959 ran twelve months and 354 days, so no month was doubled.
I was born in January 1959 — which animal am I?
The Dog, unless you were born on February 8, 1959 or later, which is when the 1959 year began.