1989 Chinese Zodiac: Earth Snake, Years and Compatibility

1989 is an Earth Snake year

The year 1989 carries the Snake, and more precisely the Earth Snake. The sexagenary cycle — the sixty-term count that pairs one heavenly stem with one earthly branch — names it 己巳 (Ji-si). Ji is the sixth of the ten stems, and it is one of the two stems assigned to Earth; Si is the sixth of the twelve branches, the Snake.

That pairing is what makes it an Earth Snake rather than simply a Snake year. The same animal comes round every twelve years, but the stems cycle every ten, so a given stem-and-animal pair returns once in sixty: 1929, 1989, 2049.

The two conventions in use give the year different edges. Under China's national standard for the calendar the animal changes on Lunar New Year's Day, so 1989 runs from 6 February to 26 January. Chart-reading changes the sexagenary year at Li Chun, which in 1989 falls on 4 February.

What the Earth form adds to a year

Five stems pair with each animal over sixty years, so each sign has five forms. For the Snake those are Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water, and 1989 is the Earth one: Ji-si.

The form is a labelling convention rather than a description of anyone. It records which stem stood over the year in the count. A Wood Snake year (1905, 1965, 2025) and an Earth Snake year (1929, 1989, 2049) carry the same animal under a different stem, and nothing in the calendar says the two are alike in character.

Chinese Zodiac: The Five Elements sets out how the stems and the animals combine across the whole cycle.

1989 Compatibility: The Monkey Is the Snake's Six-Harmony Partner

Classical tables put the twelve branches into six pairs, and each pair is called a six-harmony. The Snake's is the Monkey: Si pairs with Shen.

The second chapter of the Sanming Tonghui, a Ming-dynasty work on the subject, opens its section on these pairings by saying that harmony means the two energies agree and flows of themselves, and it lists Si with Shen among the six.

So the animal that shares 1989 is the Monkey. 1980 and 2040 are Metal Monkey years, and 1989 sits nine years after 1980.

Snake Chinese Zodiac goes further into this pair, including the detail that makes it unusual: the two branches that form the Snake's harmony also share a punishment group, so the closest ally in the table is also one of the two it is said to punish.

Where 1989 sits in the sixty-year cycle

The cycle is anchored at 1984, which is Jia-zi, its first term. Counting forward from there: 1984 Jia-zi, 1985 Yi-chou, 1986 Bing-yin, 1987 Ding-mao, 1988 Wu-chen, 1989 己巳.

That makes 1989 the sixth year of the current cycle. The previous cycle put its sixth year at 1929, and the next will reach it in 2049.

Two start lines: 4 February and 6 February

A zodiac year does not begin on 1 January, and the day it does begin on has no single answer. China's national standard for the calendar, GB/T 33661-2017, drafted by the Purple Mountain Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, starts the lunar year at the first month, and the animal year shares that reference: the animal changes on Lunar New Year's Day. Chart-reading changes the sexagenary year at Li Chun, the solar term that opens spring.

In 1989 the two lines fall two days apart. Li Chun is 4 February, and Lunar New Year's Day is 6 February, so the standard changes the animal two days after chart-reading does.

Chinese Zodiac Year Boundary lists both lines for every year from 1940 to 2030, with the gap in days for each.

A birthday in those three days

Only three calendar days in 1989 sit on or between the two lines, and only the first two of them are read differently depending on which convention is in play.

4 February and 5 February are the contested ones. The standard still counts them inside 1988, whose animal is the Dragon, because Lunar New Year has not arrived; chart-reading has already changed the year at Li Chun on the 4th. On 6 February the two lines meet: that day is Lunar New Year's Day itself, the first day of the Snake year under the standard, and chart-reading has been there since the 4th. From then on both conventions read the same animal.

A birth on the boundary day itself is the harder case, because Li Chun is a moment rather than a day. The page linked above explains why it gives days and not times.

What this page does not tell you

It does not say what a Snake is like, and it does not say what 1989 means for someone born in it. The animal is a label on a year, not a description of a person.

It also does not give a time of day for Li Chun. That the term falls on 4 February is settled; the moment within the day is not available from one authoritative source across the whole span involved, so the date is given and the clock time is left out rather than filled in from a different kind of source.

Where the 1989 dates come from

Li Chun and Lunar New Year's Day for 1989 are read from the Hong Kong Observatory's Gregorian-Lunar Calendar Conversion Table for that year, which is published one file per year. The standard behind the first line is GB/T 33661-2017, drafted by the Purple Mountain Observatory.

The pairing of Si with Shen comes from the second chapter of the Sanming Tonghui.

How we cite sets out how sources are chosen and dated on this site.

The full table behind this page — 1901 to 2100 — is published as a free dataset: chinese zodiac year boundaries.