The exact dates of the 2031 lunar year
The Metal Pig year ran from January 23, 2031 to February 10, 2032. Those 384 days are longer than a Gregorian year because a leap third month was inserted: 2031 carried thirteen lunar months rather than twelve, the same month number falling twice.
The 2031 new year fell 11 days earlier in the Gregorian year than the 2030 one, January 23, 2031 against February 3, 2030. Why the 2031 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Metal Pig pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 2031 is Xin and the branch is the Pig, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 2031 that branch is taken to mean someone generous and unguarded, taking people at their word for longer than is wise. Metal, the element attached to 2031, adds definition, resolve and a preference for clean edges.
2031 is a yin year, the inward half of the Metal pair: 2030 carries the same element in its yang form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 2031 is described as the pig temperament working through definition.
Born in January or early February 2031
From 1 January 2031 to January 22, 2031 the animal in force was still the Dog, not the Pig — 22 days of 2031 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 2031 is a Dog.
The first Pig of 2031 is anyone born on January 23, 2031 or later, and the last one anyone born on February 10, 2032. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, January 23, 2031 is at the early end.
Where 2031 sits in the sixty-year cycle
2031 is position 48 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Xin stem against the Pig branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Metal Pig year was 1971 and the next is 2091.
Someone born in 1971 therefore returned to their own pillar in 2031, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 2031 meets the pairing again in 2091.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Pig of 2031 is grouped with the Rabbit and the Goat, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 2027 and 2035. Its opposition is the Snake, six years on from 2031 in 2037.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 2031 was measured to produce them; 2031 stands four years from 2027 and six from 2037, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 2031
Because the 2031 lunar year opened on January 23, 2031, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, February 10, 2032, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 2031 stays the Pig.
Handbooks equate the Pig of 2031 with Scorpio, a pairing that lines up two twelve-part divisions rather than two claims about people. A western sign covers about thirty days, so 2031 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 2031 Metal Pig as a year-long version of Scorpio flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 2031 Chinese new year start?
January 23, 2031, and the year ran on to February 10, 2032 — 384 days.
What animal is 2031?
The Pig, in its Metal form, from January 23, 2031 onward; a birth earlier in 2031 is a Dog.
Was 2031 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
Yes — a leap third month made 2031 thirteen months and 384 days long.
I was born in January 2031 — which animal am I?
The Dog, unless you were born on January 23, 2031 or later, which is when the 2031 year began.