The exact dates of the 2018 lunar year
The Earth Dog year ran from February 16, 2018 to February 4, 2019. Twelve lunar months came to 354 days in 2018, eleven or twelve short of the solar year, and that shortfall is what pulls the following new year back towards January.
The 2018 new year fell 19 days later in the Gregorian year than the 2017 one, February 16, 2018 against January 28, 2017. Why the 2018 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Earth Dog pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 2018 is Wu and the branch is the Dog, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 2018 that branch is taken to mean someone loyal and principled, with a low tolerance for anything that looks unfair. Earth, the element attached to 2018, adds steadiness, patience and an attachment to what is already built.
2018 is a yang year, the outward half of the Earth pair: 2019 carries the same element in its yin form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 2018 is described as the dog temperament working through steadiness.
Born in January or early February 2018
From 1 January 2018 to February 15, 2018 the animal in force was still the Rooster, not the Dog — 46 days of 2018 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 2018 is a Rooster.
The first Dog of 2018 is anyone born on February 16, 2018 or later, and the last one anyone born on February 4, 2019. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, February 16, 2018 is at the later end.
Where 2018 sits in the sixty-year cycle
2018 is position 35 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Wu stem against the Dog branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Earth Dog year was 1958 and the next is 2078.
Someone born in 1958 therefore returned to their own pillar in 2018, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 2018 meets the pairing again in 2078.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Dog of 2018 is grouped with the Tiger and the Horse, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 2014 and 2022. Its opposition is the Dragon, six years on from 2018 in 2024.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 2018 was measured to produce them; 2018 stands four years from 2014 and six from 2024, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 2018
Because the 2018 lunar year opened on February 16, 2018, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, February 4, 2019, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 2018 stays the Dog.
Handbooks equate the Dog of 2018 with Libra, a pairing that lines up two twelve-part divisions rather than two claims about people. A western sign covers about thirty days, so 2018 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 2018 Earth Dog as a year-long version of Libra flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 2018 Chinese new year start?
February 16, 2018, and the year ran on to February 4, 2019 — 354 days.
What animal is 2018?
The Dog, in its Earth form, from February 16, 2018 onward; a birth earlier in 2018 is a Rooster.
Was 2018 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
No. 2018 ran twelve months and 354 days, so no month was doubled.
I was born in January 2018 — which animal am I?
The Rooster, unless you were born on February 16, 2018 or later, which is when the 2018 year began.