Year of the Snake
The Snake is the sixth of the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac, the animal of the earthly branch si. The most recent Year of the Snake ran from 29 January 2025 to 16 February 2026; the next begins on 15 February 2037.
Meaning
The Snake (蛇 shé) stands for the sixth earthly branch, 巳 sì, which names the hour from 9 to 11 in the morning in the Hong Kong Observatory’s tables. Wang Chong, in the Lunheng of the 1st century AD, gave si the element fire and the snake as its animal, and since water overcomes fire, he wrote, “the boar devours the serpent”, the pig being the animal of a water branch. In his chapter on poison the snake shares the south-east with the dragon: “The dragon is poisonous, and the snake venomous.” The cycle is used across East and Southeast Asia and in the diaspora, and the snake has its place in the Vietnamese cycle as well.
Origin and history
The oldest list of the animals gives si a creature with another name. The chapter on thieves in the Qin day book (Rishu) from Shuihudi in Hubei, buried in 217 BC, pairs 巳 with 虫, which the Wuhan University historian Yan Changgui reads as the snake. The Qin day book from Fangmatan in Gansu pairs si with the chicken; Yan takes this for a copying slip, because the same text gives the chicken to you, the rooster’s branch.
By the Northern and Southern dynasties people spoke of being born in a snake year. Yan quotes a letter from the mother of Yuwen Hu of the Northern Zhou, recorded in the official history of the dynasty: “大者属鼠，次者属兔，汝身属蛇”, your eldest brother was born a rat, the next a rabbit, and you a snake. He reads it as a sign that naming a birth year by its animal was common by then.
Years of the Snake
| Year | Element | Begins | Ends |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1929 | Earth | 10 February 1929 | 29 January 1930 |
| 1941 | Metal | 27 January 1941 | 14 February 1942 |
| 1953 | Water | 14 February 1953 | 2 February 1954 |
| 1965 | Wood | 2 February 1965 | 20 January 1966 |
| 1977 | Fire | 18 February 1977 | 6 February 1978 |
| 1989 | Earth | 6 February 1989 | 26 January 1990 |
| 2001 | Metal | 24 January 2001 | 11 February 2002 |
| 2013 | Water | 10 February 2013 | 30 January 2014 |
| 2025 | Wood | 29 January 2025 | 16 February 2026 |
Each year runs from one Lunar New Year to the day before the next, as the Hong Kong Observatory’s conversion tables give them; the next Year of the Snake begins on 15 February 2037. The element comes from the year’s heavenly stem, so it changes with the last digit of the year: Wood for years ending in 4 and 5, Fire for 6 and 7, Earth for 8 and 9, Metal for 0 and 1, and Water for 2 and 3 (the five elements). Someone born in January or early February before that year’s Lunar New Year belongs to the previous animal: a child born on 20 January 2025 was born in the Year of the Dragon, because the Year of the Snake began on 29 January. Some fortune-tellers count the change from the solar term Spring Commences (lichun, about 4 February) instead; the Observatory, and China’s national calendar standard of 2017, use the Lunar New Year. The Snake year of 2025 held two of them: the lexicographer Hugo Tseng notes that Spring Commences fell on 3 February 2025 and again on 4 February 2026, a “double spring” that comes in years with a leap month.
Snakes in Chinese art and story
In the Tang dynasty the zodiac animals were modelled with human bodies, and the V&A has an earthenware snake from one such set. Older still are the snake tails of the deities Fuxi and Nüwa: a Tang silk painting unearthed in 1965 at the Astana cemetery in Turpan, now in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Museum, shows them with their snake tails intertwined, Fuxi holding a square and Nüwa a compass. The best-known snake story is the Legend of the White Snake, as Hangzhou tells it: Bai Suzhen, a white snake spirit who has taken human form, meets the doctor Xu Xian on the Broken Bridge at West Lake and marries him, until the monk Fa Hai turns him against her. In one ending she is imprisoned under the Leifeng Pagoda; in the happier one her son’s offering makes the pagoda fall. The legend was listed as national intangible cultural heritage in 2006. Snakes in other traditions are on the snake page.
Sixth in the race
In the race told as the origin of the order, Encyclopaedia Britannica records, the snake came sixth, ahead of the horse. Some accounts say it startled the horse; others that it hid in or wrapped itself round one of the horse’s hooves while crossing the river and slipped ahead before the finish.
Read next
- Next in Chinese zodiacYear of the HorseThe Horse is the seventh of the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac, the animal of the earthly branch 午 wǔ. The current Horse year, a Fire Horse, began on 17 February 2026 and ends on 5 February 2027; the next begins on 4 February 2038.
- Snakes in other traditions, beside the snake of the Chinese cycleSnake symbolismIn Genesis the serpent tempts Eve, and Moses raises a bronze serpent on a staff; in Roman legend the god Aesculapius, “the restorer of health” in Ovid's words, comes to Rome as a serpent; in Norse myth the Midgard serpent circles the world biting its own tail. The Cherokee regard snakes as supernatural beings, to be neither killed nor named carelessly.
See also
Year of the Dragon, Year of the Rat, Year of the Ox, Year of the Tiger, Year of the Rabbit, Year of the Goat.
Sources
- Gregorian-Lunar Calendar Conversion Table of 2025 (Hong Kong Observatory), Hong Kong Observatory, Gregorian–Lunar Calendar Conversion Table of 2025, yearly text file, Hong Kong Observatory, yearly tables T1924e.txt to T2026e.txt, all checked: the date marked “1st Lunar Month” in each year of the Snake and in the following year; title line of this file; the Lunar New Year date in this file
- Gregorian-Lunar Calendar Conversion Table of 2037 (Hong Kong Observatory), Hong Kong Observatory, Gregorian–Lunar Calendar Conversion Table of 2037, yearly text file, Hong Kong Observatory, title line and the date marked “1st Lunar Month” (the next Year of the Snake)
- Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches (Hong Kong Observatory), Hong Kong Observatory, “Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches”, Calendar pages, Hong Kong Observatory, opening paragraph; Table 3 (the 12 shichen); Table 4 (stems of the months)
- What year is it today? (Hui Tai-wai, Hong Kong Observatory), Hui Tai-wai, “What year is it today?”, Hong Kong Observatory educational resources, April 2018, Hong Kong Observatory, paragraphs 4 and 6
- Huainanzi, Tianwen xun 天文訓 (Chinese Wikisource), Huainanzi 淮南子, chapter 3 “天文訓” (Celestial Patterns), 2nd century BC; Chinese text on Wikisource, Wikisource (Chinese), the passage pairing stems and branches with the five elements
- Lun-hêng, part I (Wang Chong, tr. Alfred Forke, 1907), Wang Ch’ung, Lun-hêng, Part I: Philosophical Essays of Wang Ch’ung, translated by Alfred Forke (Leipzig, Shanghai, London, 1907), Internet Archive OCR text, Internet Archive, chapter “The Nature of Things”, p. 105; “On Poison”, p. 301
- Lunheng, chapter 14, Wu shi 物勢 (Wang Chong, Chinese Wikisource), Wang Chong 王充, Lunheng 論衡, chapter 14 “物勢” (The Nature of Things), 1st century AD; Chinese text on Wikisource, Wikisource (Chinese), Wu shi
- Lunheng, chapter 66, Yan du 言毒 (Wang Chong, Chinese Wikisource), Wang Chong 王充, Lunheng 論衡, chapter 66 “言毒” (On Poison), 1st century AD; Chinese text on Wikisource, Wikisource (Chinese), Yan du
- 中国传统生肖文化探源 (Yan Changgui, People’s Tribune), Yan Changgui 晏昌贵 (School of History, Wuhan University), “中国传统生肖文化探源” (The origins of the traditional Chinese zodiac), 人民论坛 People’s Tribune, 16 October 2025, 人民论坛 People’s Tribune, “十二生肖溯源”; “十二生肖‘天地人’意涵的建构”
- The 12 zodiac animals at the V&A (Ming Wilson), Ming Wilson, “The 12 zodiac animals at the V&A”, V&A Blog (Imperial Chinese Robes from the Forbidden City), 1 February 2011, Victoria and Albert Museum, SNAKE
- Ancient silk painting depicts Fuxi and Nüwa with intertwined snake tails (China Daily), “Ancient silk painting depicts Fuxi and Nüwa with intertwined snake tails”, China Daily (govt.chinadaily.com.cn), 6 February 2025, China Daily, article text
- Chinese love story: Legend of the White Snake (Hangzhou government), “Chinese love story: Legend of the White Snake”, ehangzhou.gov.cn (Information Office of Hangzhou Municipal People’s Government), 15 February 2023, Hangzhou Municipal People’s Government, article text
- When Taiwan awakens to spring (Hugo Tseng, Taipei Times), Hugo Tseng, “When Taiwan awakens to spring”, Taipei Times, 1 February 2026, Taipei Times, paragraph 5
- Chinese zodiac (Encyclopaedia Britannica), Frannie Comstock, “Chinese zodiac”, Encyclopaedia Britannica (Internet Archive copy, 29 September 2026), Encyclopaedia Britannica, History and legend; Personalities, meanings, and other variations
- Why Vietnam Is Celebrating the Year of the Cat, Not the Rabbit (VOA / AFP), “Why Vietnam Is Celebrating the Year of the Cat, Not the Rabbit”, Voice of America (from AFP), January 2023, Voice of America, paragraph 3
- 藏在博物馆里的鼠 (People’s Weekly), “藏在博物馆里的鼠” (Rats in the museum), 人民周刊 People’s Weekly, 4 March 2020, People’s Daily (人民网), paragraph 2
- 十二生肖起源可推至战国 (Fan Guodong, Chinanews / Wuhan Evening News), “十二生肖起源可推至战国 鼠身兼阴阳居首位”, interview with Fan Guodong 凡国栋, Wuhan Evening News 武汉晚报, reprinted by China News Service, 15 February 2015, China News Service (chinanews.com), interview text
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from curves and waves.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 8, 2026. How we research
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