The exact dates of the 1991 lunar year
The Metal Goat year ran from February 15, 1991 to February 3, 1992. Twelve lunar months came to 354 days in 1991, eleven or twelve short of the solar year, and that shortfall is what pulls the following new year back towards January.
The 1991 new year fell 19 days later in the Gregorian year than the 1990 one, February 15, 1991 against January 27, 1990. Why the 1991 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Metal Goat pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 1991 is Xin and the branch is the Goat, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 1991 that branch is taken to mean someone gentle and indirect, more determined than the manner suggests. Metal, the element attached to 1991, adds definition, resolve and a preference for clean edges.
1991 is a yin year, the inward half of the Metal pair: 1990 carries the same element in its yang form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 1991 is described as the goat temperament working through definition.
Born in January or early February 1991
From 1 January 1991 to February 14, 1991 the animal in force was still the Horse, not the Goat — 45 days of 1991 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 1991 is a Horse.
The first Goat of 1991 is anyone born on February 15, 1991 or later, and the last one anyone born on February 3, 1992. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, February 15, 1991 is at the later end.
Where 1991 sits in the sixty-year cycle
1991 is position 8 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Xin stem against the Goat branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Metal Goat year was 1931 and the next is 2051.
Someone born in 1931 therefore returned to their own pillar in 1991, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 1991 meets the pairing again in 2051.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Goat of 1991 is grouped with the Rabbit and the Pig, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 1987 and 1995. Its opposition is the Ox, six years on from 1991 in 1997.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 1991 was measured to produce them; 1991 stands four years from 1987 and six from 1997, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 1991
Because the 1991 lunar year opened on February 15, 1991, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, February 3, 1992, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 1991 stays the Goat.
Handbooks equate the Goat of 1991 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 1991 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 1991 Metal Goat as a year-long version of Cancer flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 1991 Chinese new year start?
February 15, 1991, and the year ran on to February 3, 1992 — 354 days.
What animal is 1991?
The Goat, in its Metal form, from February 15, 1991 onward; a birth earlier in 1991 is a Horse.
Was 1991 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
No. 1991 ran twelve months and 354 days, so no month was doubled.
I was born in January 1991 — which animal am I?
The Horse, unless you were born on February 15, 1991 or later, which is when the 1991 year began.