The exact dates of the 2030 lunar year
The Metal Dog year ran from February 3, 2030 to January 22, 2031. Twelve lunar months came to 354 days in 2030, eleven or twelve short of the solar year, and that shortfall is what pulls the following new year back towards January.
The 2030 new year fell 10 days earlier in the Gregorian year than the 2029 one, February 3, 2030 against February 13, 2029. Why the 2030 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Metal Dog pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 2030 is Geng and the branch is the Dog, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 2030 that branch is taken to mean someone loyal and principled, with a low tolerance for anything that looks unfair. Metal, the element attached to 2030, adds definition, resolve and a preference for clean edges.
2030 is a yang year, the outward half of the Metal pair: 2031 carries the same element in its yin form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 2030 is described as the dog temperament working through definition.
Born in January or early February 2030
From 1 January 2030 to February 2, 2030 the animal in force was still the Rooster, not the Dog — 33 days of 2030 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 2030 is a Rooster.
The first Dog of 2030 is anyone born on February 3, 2030 or later, and the last one anyone born on January 22, 2031. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, February 3, 2030 is at the later end.
Where 2030 sits in the sixty-year cycle
2030 is position 47 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Geng stem against the Dog branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Metal Dog year was 1970 and the next is 2090.
Someone born in 1970 therefore returned to their own pillar in 2030, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 2030 meets the pairing again in 2090.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Dog of 2030 is grouped with the Tiger and the Horse, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 2026 and 2034. Its opposition is the Dragon, six years on from 2030 in 2036.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 2030 was measured to produce them; 2030 stands four years from 2026 and six from 2036, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 2030
Because the 2030 lunar year opened on February 3, 2030, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, January 22, 2031, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 2030 stays the Dog.
Handbooks equate the Dog of 2030 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 2030 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 2030 Metal Dog as a year-long version of Libra flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 2030 Chinese new year start?
February 3, 2030, and the year ran on to January 22, 2031 — 354 days.
What animal is 2030?
The Dog, in its Metal form, from February 3, 2030 onward; a birth earlier in 2030 is a Rooster.
Was 2030 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
No. 2030 ran twelve months and 354 days, so no month was doubled.
I was born in January 2030 — which animal am I?
The Rooster, unless you were born on February 3, 2030 or later, which is when the 2030 year began.