The exact dates of the 1999 lunar year
The Earth Rabbit year ran from February 16, 1999 to February 4, 2000. Twelve lunar months came to 354 days in 1999, eleven or twelve short of the solar year, and that shortfall is what pulls the following new year back towards January.
The 1999 new year fell 19 days later in the Gregorian year than the 1998 one, February 16, 1999 against January 28, 1998. Why the 1999 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Earth Rabbit pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 1999 is Ji and the branch is the Rabbit, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 1999 that branch is taken to mean someone careful and diplomatic, avoiding conflict without conceding the point. Earth, the element attached to 1999, adds steadiness, patience and an attachment to what is already built.
1999 is a yin year, the inward half of the Earth pair: 1998 carries the same element in its yang form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 1999 is described as the rabbit temperament working through steadiness.
Born in January or early February 1999
From 1 January 1999 to February 15, 1999 the animal in force was still the Tiger, not the Rabbit — 46 days of 1999 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 1999 is a Tiger.
The first Rabbit of 1999 is anyone born on February 16, 1999 or later, and the last one anyone born on February 4, 2000. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, February 16, 1999 is at the later end.
Where 1999 sits in the sixty-year cycle
1999 is position 16 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Ji stem against the Rabbit branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Earth Rabbit year was 1939 and the next is 2059.
Someone born in 1939 therefore returned to their own pillar in 1999, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 1999 meets the pairing again in 2059.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Rabbit of 1999 is grouped with the Goat and the Pig, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 1995 and 2003. Its opposition is the Rooster, six years on from 1999 in 2005.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 1999 was measured to produce them; 1999 stands four years from 1995 and six from 2005, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 1999
Because the 1999 lunar year opened on February 16, 1999, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, February 4, 2000, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 1999 stays the Rabbit.
Handbooks equate the Rabbit of 1999 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 1999 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 1999 Earth Rabbit as a year-long version of Pisces flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 1999 Chinese new year start?
February 16, 1999, and the year ran on to February 4, 2000 — 354 days.
What animal is 1999?
The Rabbit, in its Earth form, from February 16, 1999 onward; a birth earlier in 1999 is a Tiger.
Was 1999 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
No. 1999 ran twelve months and 354 days, so no month was doubled.
I was born in January 1999 — which animal am I?
The Tiger, unless you were born on February 16, 1999 or later, which is when the 1999 year began.