The exact dates of the 2013 lunar year
The Water Snake year ran from February 10, 2013 to January 30, 2014. Twelve lunar months came to 355 days in 2013, eleven or twelve short of the solar year, and that shortfall is what pulls the following new year back towards January.
The 2013 new year fell 18 days later in the Gregorian year than the 2012 one, February 10, 2013 against January 23, 2012. Why the 2013 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Water Snake pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 2013 is Gui and the branch is the Snake, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 2013 that branch is taken to mean someone private and calculating, saying considerably less than it works out. Water, the element attached to 2013, adds adaptability, depth and a way of getting around obstacles rather than through.
2013 is a yin year, the inward half of the Water pair: 2012 carries the same element in its yang form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 2013 is described as the snake temperament working through adaptability.
Born in January or early February 2013
From 1 January 2013 to February 9, 2013 the animal in force was still the Dragon, not the Snake — 40 days of 2013 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 2013 is a Dragon.
The first Snake of 2013 is anyone born on February 10, 2013 or later, and the last one anyone born on January 30, 2014. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, February 10, 2013 is at the later end.
Where 2013 sits in the sixty-year cycle
2013 is position 30 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Gui stem against the Snake branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Water Snake year was 1953 and the next is 2073.
Someone born in 1953 therefore returned to their own pillar in 2013, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 2013 meets the pairing again in 2073.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Snake of 2013 is grouped with the Ox and the Rooster, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 2009 and 2017. Its opposition is the Pig, six years on from 2013 in 2019.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 2013 was measured to produce them; 2013 stands four years from 2009 and six from 2019, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 2013
Because the 2013 lunar year opened on February 10, 2013, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, January 30, 2014, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 2013 stays the Snake.
Handbooks equate the Snake of 2013 with Taurus, a pairing that lines up two twelve-part divisions rather than two claims about people. A western sign covers about thirty days, so 2013 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 2013 Water Snake as a year-long version of Taurus flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 2013 Chinese new year start?
February 10, 2013, and the year ran on to January 30, 2014 — 355 days.
What animal is 2013?
The Snake, in its Water form, from February 10, 2013 onward; a birth earlier in 2013 is a Dragon.
Was 2013 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
No. 2013 ran twelve months and 355 days, so no month was doubled.
I was born in January 2013 — which animal am I?
The Dragon, unless you were born on February 10, 2013 or later, which is when the 2013 year began.