The exact dates of the 2004 lunar year
The Wood Monkey year ran from January 22, 2004 to February 8, 2005. Those 384 days are longer than a Gregorian year because a leap second month was inserted: 2004 carried thirteen lunar months rather than twelve, the same month number falling twice.
The 2004 new year fell 10 days earlier in the Gregorian year than the 2003 one, January 22, 2004 against February 1, 2003. Why the 2004 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Wood Monkey pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 2004 is Jia and the branch is the Monkey, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 2004 that branch is taken to mean someone inventive and quick, solving things sideways and getting bored fast. Wood, the element attached to 2004, adds growth, flexibility and the willingness to keep extending.
2004 is a yang year, the outward half of the Wood pair: 2005 carries the same element in its yin form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 2004 is described as the monkey temperament working through growth.
Born in January or early February 2004
From 1 January 2004 to January 21, 2004 the animal in force was still the Goat, not the Monkey — 21 days of 2004 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 2004 is a Goat.
The first Monkey of 2004 is anyone born on January 22, 2004 or later, and the last one anyone born on February 8, 2005. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, January 22, 2004 is at the early end.
Where 2004 sits in the sixty-year cycle
2004 is position 21 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Jia stem against the Monkey branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Wood Monkey year was 1944 and the next is 2064.
Someone born in 1944 therefore returned to their own pillar in 2004, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 2004 meets the pairing again in 2064.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Monkey of 2004 is grouped with the Rat and the Dragon, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 2000 and 2008. Its opposition is the Tiger, six years on from 2004 in 2010.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 2004 was measured to produce them; 2004 stands four years from 2000 and six from 2010, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 2004
Because the 2004 lunar year opened on January 22, 2004, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, February 8, 2005, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 2004 stays the Monkey.
Handbooks equate the Monkey of 2004 with Leo, a pairing that lines up two twelve-part divisions rather than two claims about people. A western sign covers about thirty days, so 2004 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 2004 Wood Monkey as a year-long version of Leo flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 2004 Chinese new year start?
January 22, 2004, and the year ran on to February 8, 2005 — 384 days.
What animal is 2004?
The Monkey, in its Wood form, from January 22, 2004 onward; a birth earlier in 2004 is a Goat.
Was 2004 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
Yes — a leap second month made 2004 thirteen months and 384 days long.
I was born in January 2004 — which animal am I?
The Goat, unless you were born on January 22, 2004 or later, which is when the 2004 year began.