The exact dates of the 1979 lunar year
The Earth Goat year ran from January 28, 1979 to February 15, 1980. Those 384 days are longer than a Gregorian year because a leap sixth month was inserted: 1979 carried thirteen lunar months rather than twelve, the same month number falling twice.
The 1979 new year fell 10 days earlier in the Gregorian year than the 1978 one, January 28, 1979 against February 7, 1978. Why the 1979 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Earth Goat pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 1979 is Ji and the branch is the Goat, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 1979 that branch is taken to mean someone gentle and indirect, more determined than the manner suggests. Earth, the element attached to 1979, adds steadiness, patience and an attachment to what is already built.
1979 is a yin year, the inward half of the Earth pair: 1978 carries the same element in its yang form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 1979 is described as the goat temperament working through steadiness.
Born in January or early February 1979
From 1 January 1979 to January 27, 1979 the animal in force was still the Horse, not the Goat — 27 days of 1979 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 1979 is a Horse.
The first Goat of 1979 is anyone born on January 28, 1979 or later, and the last one anyone born on February 15, 1980. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, January 28, 1979 is at the early end.
Where 1979 sits in the sixty-year cycle
1979 is position 56 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Ji stem against the Goat branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Earth Goat year was 1919 and the next is 2039.
Someone born in 1919 therefore returned to their own pillar in 1979, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 1979 meets the pairing again in 2039.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Goat of 1979 is grouped with the Rabbit and the Pig, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 1975 and 1983. Its opposition is the Ox, six years on from 1979 in 1985.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 1979 was measured to produce them; 1979 stands four years from 1975 and six from 1985, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 1979
Because the 1979 lunar year opened on January 28, 1979, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, February 15, 1980, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 1979 stays the Goat.
Handbooks equate the Goat of 1979 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 1979 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 1979 Earth Goat as a year-long version of Cancer flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 1979 Chinese new year start?
January 28, 1979, and the year ran on to February 15, 1980 — 384 days.
What animal is 1979?
The Goat, in its Earth form, from January 28, 1979 onward; a birth earlier in 1979 is a Horse.
Was 1979 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
Yes — a leap sixth month made 1979 thirteen months and 384 days long.
I was born in January 1979 — which animal am I?
The Horse, unless you were born on January 28, 1979 or later, which is when the 1979 year began.