The exact dates of the 2040 lunar year
The Metal Monkey year ran from February 12, 2040 to January 31, 2041. Twelve lunar months came to 355 days in 2040, eleven or twelve short of the solar year, and that shortfall is what pulls the following new year back towards January.
The 2040 new year fell 19 days later in the Gregorian year than the 2039 one, February 12, 2040 against January 24, 2039. Why the 2040 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Metal Monkey pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 2040 is Geng and the branch is the Monkey, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 2040 that branch is taken to mean someone inventive and quick, solving things sideways and getting bored fast. Metal, the element attached to 2040, adds definition, resolve and a preference for clean edges.
2040 is a yang year, the outward half of the Metal pair: 2041 carries the same element in its yin form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 2040 is described as the monkey temperament working through definition.
Born in January or early February 2040
From 1 January 2040 to February 11, 2040 the animal in force was still the Goat, not the Monkey — 42 days of 2040 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 2040 is a Goat.
The first Monkey of 2040 is anyone born on February 12, 2040 or later, and the last one anyone born on January 31, 2041. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, February 12, 2040 is at the later end.
Where 2040 sits in the sixty-year cycle
2040 is position 57 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Geng stem against the Monkey branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Metal Monkey year was 1980 and the next is 2100.
Someone born in 1980 therefore returned to their own pillar in 2040, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 2040 meets the pairing again in 2100.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Monkey of 2040 is grouped with the Rat and the Dragon, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 2036 and 2044. Its opposition is the Tiger, six years on from 2040 in 2046.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 2040 was measured to produce them; 2040 stands four years from 2036 and six from 2046, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 2040
Because the 2040 lunar year opened on February 12, 2040, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, January 31, 2041, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 2040 stays the Monkey.
Handbooks equate the Monkey of 2040 with Leo, a pairing that lines up two twelve-part divisions rather than two claims about people. A western sign covers about thirty days, so 2040 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 2040 Metal Monkey as a year-long version of Leo flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 2040 Chinese new year start?
February 12, 2040, and the year ran on to January 31, 2041 — 355 days.
What animal is 2040?
The Monkey, in its Metal form, from February 12, 2040 onward; a birth earlier in 2040 is a Goat.
Was 2040 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
No. 2040 ran twelve months and 355 days, so no month was doubled.
I was born in January 2040 — which animal am I?
The Goat, unless you were born on February 12, 2040 or later, which is when the 2040 year began.