The exact dates of the 2010 lunar year
The Metal Tiger year ran from February 14, 2010 to February 2, 2011. Twelve lunar months came to 354 days in 2010, eleven or twelve short of the solar year, and that shortfall is what pulls the following new year back towards January.
The 2010 new year fell 19 days later in the Gregorian year than the 2009 one, February 14, 2010 against January 26, 2009. Why the 2010 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Metal Tiger pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 2010 is Geng and the branch is the Tiger, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 2010 that branch is taken to mean someone bold and impatient, better at starting than at waiting. Metal, the element attached to 2010, adds definition, resolve and a preference for clean edges.
2010 is a yang year, the outward half of the Metal pair: 2011 carries the same element in its yin form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 2010 is described as the tiger temperament working through definition.
Born in January or early February 2010
From 1 January 2010 to February 13, 2010 the animal in force was still the Ox, not the Tiger — 44 days of 2010 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 2010 is a Ox.
The first Tiger of 2010 is anyone born on February 14, 2010 or later, and the last one anyone born on February 2, 2011. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, February 14, 2010 is at the later end.
Where 2010 sits in the sixty-year cycle
2010 is position 27 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Geng stem against the Tiger branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Metal Tiger year was 1950 and the next is 2070.
Someone born in 1950 therefore returned to their own pillar in 2010, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 2010 meets the pairing again in 2070.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Tiger of 2010 is grouped with the Horse and the Dog, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 2006 and 2014. Its opposition is the Monkey, six years on from 2010 in 2016.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 2010 was measured to produce them; 2010 stands four years from 2006 and six from 2016, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 2010
Because the 2010 lunar year opened on February 14, 2010, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, February 2, 2011, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 2010 stays the Tiger.
Handbooks equate the Tiger of 2010 with Aquarius, a pairing that lines up two twelve-part divisions rather than two claims about people. A western sign covers about thirty days, so 2010 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 2010 Metal Tiger as a year-long version of Aquarius flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 2010 Chinese new year start?
February 14, 2010, and the year ran on to February 2, 2011 — 354 days.
What animal is 2010?
The Tiger, in its Metal form, from February 14, 2010 onward; a birth earlier in 2010 is a Ox.
Was 2010 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
No. 2010 ran twelve months and 354 days, so no month was doubled.
I was born in January 2010 — which animal am I?
The Ox, unless you were born on February 14, 2010 or later, which is when the 2010 year began.