The exact dates of the 1975 lunar year
The Wood Rabbit year ran from February 11, 1975 to January 30, 1976. Twelve lunar months came to 354 days in 1975, eleven or twelve short of the solar year, and that shortfall is what pulls the following new year back towards January.
The 1975 new year fell 19 days later in the Gregorian year than the 1974 one, February 11, 1975 against January 23, 1974. Why the 1975 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Wood Rabbit pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 1975 is Yi and the branch is the Rabbit, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 1975 that branch is taken to mean someone careful and diplomatic, avoiding conflict without conceding the point. Wood, the element attached to 1975, adds growth, flexibility and the willingness to keep extending.
1975 is a yin year, the inward half of the Wood pair: 1974 carries the same element in its yang form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 1975 is described as the rabbit temperament working through growth.
Born in January or early February 1975
From 1 January 1975 to February 10, 1975 the animal in force was still the Tiger, not the Rabbit — 41 days of 1975 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 1975 is a Tiger.
The first Rabbit of 1975 is anyone born on February 11, 1975 or later, and the last one anyone born on January 30, 1976. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, February 11, 1975 is at the later end.
Where 1975 sits in the sixty-year cycle
1975 is position 52 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Yi stem against the Rabbit branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Wood Rabbit year was 1915 and the next is 2035.
Someone born in 1915 therefore returned to their own pillar in 1975, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 1975 meets the pairing again in 2035.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Rabbit of 1975 is grouped with the Goat and the Pig, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 1971 and 1979. Its opposition is the Rooster, six years on from 1975 in 1981.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 1975 was measured to produce them; 1975 stands four years from 1971 and six from 1981, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 1975
Because the 1975 lunar year opened on February 11, 1975, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, January 30, 1976, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 1975 stays the Rabbit.
Handbooks equate the Rabbit of 1975 with Pisces, a pairing that lines up two twelve-part divisions rather than two claims about people. A western sign covers about thirty days, so 1975 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 1975 Wood Rabbit as a year-long version of Pisces flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 1975 Chinese new year start?
February 11, 1975, and the year ran on to January 30, 1976 — 354 days.
What animal is 1975?
The Rabbit, in its Wood form, from February 11, 1975 onward; a birth earlier in 1975 is a Tiger.
Was 1975 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
No. 1975 ran twelve months and 354 days, so no month was doubled.
I was born in January 1975 — which animal am I?
The Tiger, unless you were born on February 11, 1975 or later, which is when the 1975 year began.