What Chinese zodiac animal is 1938?
Earth Tiger for birthdays on or after January 31, 1938. January 1–30 birthdays belong to Fire Ox under the Lunar New Year rule.
1938 Chinese zodiac · an unusually long Tiger year
1938 Chinese Zodiac: Which Animal Matches Your Birthday?
If you were born January 1–30, 1938, your year animal is Fire Ox. If you were born January 31–December 31, it is Earth Tiger. This site uses Lunar New Year, which began on January 31 in 1938. The Hong Kong Observatory's 1938 calendar calls that lunar year Wu-yin (Tiger). The Earth Tiger year then ran through February 18, 1939.
Why does this Tiger year stretch into February 1939?
Read two neighboring Observatory tables together: the 1938 table places the first lunar month on January 31; the 1939 table starts the Rabbit year on February 19. The interval from January 31, 1938 up to February 19, 1939 is 384 days. Thus a February 18, 1939 birth is still Earth Tiger under this rule; a February 19 birth is Earth Rabbit.
The 1938 table labels a seventh lunar month twice, showing a leap seventh month. The extra lunar month helps explain this 384-day year. It does not create a thirteenth zodiac animal or change someone from Tiger to another year animal midway through the lunar year.
Check the boundary with actual birthdays
| Birthday | Result here | Calendar reason |
|---|---|---|
| January 30, 1938 | Fire Ox | Last day before the new Tiger year |
| January 31, 1938 | Earth Tiger | First day of the new lunar year |
| August 1938 | Earth Tiger | The repeated seventh month stays within the same year animal |
| February 18, 1939 | Earth Tiger | Last day before Rabbit year |
| February 19, 1939 | Earth Rabbit | First day of Rabbit year |
These examples cover both edges of one lunar year. The 30 January days in Gregorian 1938 remain in the preceding Ding-chou Ox year, named in the 1937 table. The 1939 table names the next year Ji-mao Rabbit. The Fire/Earth labels refer to the year stem in the site's element chart.
Check a 1938 birth date
Choose a Gregorian date in 1938. This browser-only check returns the year animal and year element using the January 31 Lunar New Year cutoff.
For another year, use our Chinese zodiac calculator. This date check does not calculate a Four Pillars chart, birth-hour animal, historic time zone, daylight saving, or true solar time.
Questions people ask about 1938
Is January 30, 1938 a Tiger?
No. The Tiger year started the next day, January 31.
Is February 1939 still the 1938 Tiger year?
February 1–18, 1939 is Earth Tiger. February 19 begins Earth Rabbit.
Does a leap lunar month change the zodiac sign?
No. The repeated seventh month sits within the same 1938 Earth Tiger year. The next animal begins at the following Lunar New Year.
Why can a BaZi calculator disagree?
Some year-pillar methods use the Start of Spring. This page gives the popular year animal using Lunar New Year and does not compute BaZi.
Watch the 1938 date story
Watch this 1938 explanation on the Chinese Sign Finder YouTube channel.
Sources and calculation
Primary dates and lunar month labels come from the Hong Kong Observatory's 1937, 1938, and 1939 Gregorian–lunar conversion tables. We counted 30 January birthdays before the cutoff and 384 days between successive Lunar New Year starts, then built the date examples and diagrams from those facts. Year animals are calendar labels, not verified claims about personality or future events. For a different Tiger year, see the Tiger date guide and our 1950 boundary example.