Goat, Sheep or Ram, and when the year opens
The Chinese character for this animal covers goats and sheep alike, which is why English sources disagree. The dates do not disagree at all. The Chinese year begins at the second new moon after the December solstice, so new year's day falls between 21 January and 20 February. The next Goat year begins on 6 February 2027.
Calculators that assign animals by the Gregorian year get everyone born in that six week gap wrong, roughly one birthday in eight. Someone born on 1 February 1988 is usually filed as a Dragon; because the 1988 new year arrived on 17 February, they are actually a Rabbit. The widget on this page finds the correct boundary for your year before it names an animal.
The rest of the year is not affected. From late February onwards both calendars give the same animal, so it is only the opening weeks that need working out properly.
Goat years and the elements
Goat years arrive every twelve years: 1979, 1991, 2003, 2015 and 2027. Each runs from its new year date to the day before the next, so it always crosses two Gregorian years.
The animals are paired with a cycle of five elements, Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water, each of which covers two consecutive years. Twelve and ten come back into step only after sixty years, so an animal wears a given element once in a long life. The 2015 Goat year was a Wood Goat, and the 2027 one falls in the Fire pair. The full name of a year always includes the element, and a reading that quotes the animal alone has dropped part of the label.
The reading, the polarity and the race
The Goat is a yin animal. In the Great Race it crossed the river on a raft with the Monkey and the Rooster, the three of them clearing weeds out of the way together, and it stepped off first of the three to take eighth place.
The traditional reading follows the cooperative part of that story. The Goat is described as gentle, tactful and creative, more comfortable supporting than leading, and attentive to comfort and appearance. The same tradition calls it indecisive, easily discouraged and dependent on approval. There is also a persistent folk belief in parts of East Asia that a Goat year is a poor year to be born in, which is a superstition worth naming precisely because it is quoted so confidently.
As with every animal in the cycle, the reading attaches to a year and therefore to everyone born in it. That is a claim about a cohort rather than about a person, and the tradition is clearer about this than most retellings are.
Trines, the opposite animal, and western signs
The Goat is in a trine with the Rabbit and the Pig, animals four places apart that the tradition reads as domestic, tolerant and slow to fight. Six places away is the Ox, the Goat's opposite, a pairing described as different ideas of what counts as effort.
It is also worth being plain that this system and western astrology are not variants of each other. The animal is decided by the lunisolar year of birth, a western sign by the Sun on the day. They rest on different calendars and make different sorts of claim, so nothing follows from holding both at once and nothing needs to be squared between them.
Questions people ask about this
When is the next Year of the Goat?
It begins on 6 February 2027 and runs to the day before the following new year. The previous Goat years were 2015, 2003 and 1991.
Is it the Goat, the Sheep or the Ram?
All three translate the same Chinese term, which does not distinguish between the animals the way English does. The year boundaries and the readings are identical whichever name is used.
What element was the 2015 Goat year?
Wood. The element cycle moves in pairs of years through Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water, and the 2027 Goat year falls in the Fire pair.
Is being born in a Goat year unlucky?
There is a folk belief in parts of East Asia that says so, strong enough to affect birth rates in some Goat years. It is a superstition rather than part of the formal system, and it is not shared everywhere the cycle is used.
How did the Goat come eighth?
The story has the Goat, the Monkey and the Rooster building a raft and crossing together, clearing the weeds as they went. The Goat left the raft first of the three.
Which animal is opposite the Goat?
The Ox, six places along the cycle. The tradition reads opposites as temperamental friction, and the element of each year is taken into account before any verdict.