The exact dates of the 2007 lunar year
The Fire Pig year ran from February 18, 2007 to February 6, 2008. Twelve lunar months came to 354 days in 2007, eleven or twelve short of the solar year, and that shortfall is what pulls the following new year back towards January.
The 2007 new year fell 20 days later in the Gregorian year than the 2006 one, February 18, 2007 against January 29, 2006. Why the 2007 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Fire Pig pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 2007 is Ding and the branch is the Pig, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 2007 that branch is taken to mean someone generous and unguarded, taking people at their word for longer than is wise. Fire, the element attached to 2007, adds visibility, warmth and a tendency to burn through reserves.
2007 is a yin year, the inward half of the Fire pair: 2006 carries the same element in its yang form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 2007 is described as the pig temperament working through visibility.
Born in January or early February 2007
From 1 January 2007 to February 17, 2007 the animal in force was still the Dog, not the Pig — 48 days of 2007 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 2007 is a Dog.
The first Pig of 2007 is anyone born on February 18, 2007 or later, and the last one anyone born on February 6, 2008. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, February 18, 2007 is at the later end.
Where 2007 sits in the sixty-year cycle
2007 is position 24 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Ding stem against the Pig branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Fire Pig year was 1947 and the next is 2067.
Someone born in 1947 therefore returned to their own pillar in 2007, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 2007 meets the pairing again in 2067.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Pig of 2007 is grouped with the Rabbit and the Goat, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 2003 and 2011. Its opposition is the Snake, six years on from 2007 in 2013.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 2007 was measured to produce them; 2007 stands four years from 2003 and six from 2013, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 2007
Because the 2007 lunar year opened on February 18, 2007, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, February 6, 2008, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 2007 stays the Pig.
Handbooks equate the Pig of 2007 with Scorpio, a pairing that lines up two twelve-part divisions rather than two claims about people. A western sign covers about thirty days, so 2007 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 2007 Fire Pig as a year-long version of Scorpio flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 2007 Chinese new year start?
February 18, 2007, and the year ran on to February 6, 2008 — 354 days.
What animal is 2007?
The Pig, in its Fire form, from February 18, 2007 onward; a birth earlier in 2007 is a Dog.
Was 2007 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
No. 2007 ran twelve months and 354 days, so no month was doubled.
I was born in January 2007 — which animal am I?
The Dog, unless you were born on February 18, 2007 or later, which is when the 2007 year began.