The exact dates of the 2014 lunar year
The Wood Horse year ran from January 31, 2014 to February 18, 2015. Those 384 days are longer than a Gregorian year because a leap ninth month was inserted: 2014 carried thirteen lunar months rather than twelve, the same month number falling twice.
The 2014 new year fell 10 days earlier in the Gregorian year than the 2013 one, January 31, 2014 against February 10, 2013. Why the 2014 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Wood Horse pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 2014 is Jia and the branch is the Horse, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 2014 that branch is taken to mean someone restless and independent, poor at being managed and good at moving. Wood, the element attached to 2014, adds growth, flexibility and the willingness to keep extending.
2014 is a yang year, the outward half of the Wood pair: 2015 carries the same element in its yin form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 2014 is described as the horse temperament working through growth.
Born in January or early February 2014
From 1 January 2014 to January 30, 2014 the animal in force was still the Snake, not the Horse — 30 days of 2014 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 2014 is a Snake.
The first Horse of 2014 is anyone born on January 31, 2014 or later, and the last one anyone born on February 18, 2015. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, January 31, 2014 is at the early end.
Where 2014 sits in the sixty-year cycle
2014 is position 31 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Jia stem against the Horse branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Wood Horse year was 1954 and the next is 2074.
Someone born in 1954 therefore returned to their own pillar in 2014, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 2014 meets the pairing again in 2074.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Horse of 2014 is grouped with the Tiger and the Dog, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 2010 and 2018. Its opposition is the Rat, six years on from 2014 in 2020.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 2014 was measured to produce them; 2014 stands four years from 2010 and six from 2020, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 2014
Because the 2014 lunar year opened on January 31, 2014, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, February 18, 2015, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 2014 stays the Horse.
Handbooks equate the Horse of 2014 with Gemini, a pairing that lines up two twelve-part divisions rather than two claims about people. A western sign covers about thirty days, so 2014 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 2014 Wood Horse as a year-long version of Gemini flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 2014 Chinese new year start?
January 31, 2014, and the year ran on to February 18, 2015 — 384 days.
What animal is 2014?
The Horse, in its Wood form, from January 31, 2014 onward; a birth earlier in 2014 is a Snake.
Was 2014 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
Yes — a leap ninth month made 2014 thirteen months and 384 days long.
I was born in January 2014 — which animal am I?
The Snake, unless you were born on January 31, 2014 or later, which is when the 2014 year began.