The exact dates of the 1967 lunar year
The Fire Goat year ran from February 9, 1967 to January 29, 1968. Twelve lunar months came to 355 days in 1967, eleven or twelve short of the solar year, and that shortfall is what pulls the following new year back towards January.
The 1967 new year fell 19 days later in the Gregorian year than the 1966 one, February 9, 1967 against January 21, 1966. Why the 1967 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Fire Goat pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 1967 is Ding and the branch is the Goat, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 1967 that branch is taken to mean someone gentle and indirect, more determined than the manner suggests. Fire, the element attached to 1967, adds visibility, warmth and a tendency to burn through reserves.
1967 is a yin year, the inward half of the Fire pair: 1966 carries the same element in its yang form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 1967 is described as the goat temperament working through visibility.
Born in January or early February 1967
From 1 January 1967 to February 8, 1967 the animal in force was still the Horse, not the Goat — 39 days of 1967 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 1967 is a Horse.
The first Goat of 1967 is anyone born on February 9, 1967 or later, and the last one anyone born on January 29, 1968. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, February 9, 1967 is at the later end.
Where 1967 sits in the sixty-year cycle
1967 is position 44 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Ding stem against the Goat branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Fire Goat year was 1907 and the next is 2027.
Someone born in 1907 therefore returned to their own pillar in 1967, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 1967 meets the pairing again in 2027.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Goat of 1967 is grouped with the Rabbit and the Pig, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 1963 and 1971. Its opposition is the Ox, six years on from 1967 in 1973.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 1967 was measured to produce them; 1967 stands four years from 1963 and six from 1973, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 1967
Because the 1967 lunar year opened on February 9, 1967, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, January 29, 1968, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 1967 stays the Goat.
Handbooks equate the Goat of 1967 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 1967 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 1967 Fire Goat as a year-long version of Cancer flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 1967 Chinese new year start?
February 9, 1967, and the year ran on to January 29, 1968 — 355 days.
What animal is 1967?
The Goat, in its Fire form, from February 9, 1967 onward; a birth earlier in 1967 is a Horse.
Was 1967 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
No. 1967 ran twelve months and 355 days, so no month was doubled.
I was born in January 1967 — which animal am I?
The Horse, unless you were born on February 9, 1967 or later, which is when the 1967 year began.