The Earth Element: Meaning, Years and Personality in the Chinese Zodiac

What Earth means

Think of a rice field at harvest time, or the solid ground under a house: steady, patient and quietly holding everything else up. Earth is the element of the centre. In the traditional picture it does not own one season but sits at the turn of every season, the point where one phase settles before the next begins.

In Chinese the five elements are called wuxing, and Earth is tu. As Wikipedia's article on wuxing notes, the word was first translated into English as the Five Elements, but the idea is less about physical substances than about processes and change. That is why some scholars prefer translations such as five phases or five agents. Earth is best understood as a stage in a cycle, a kind of energy, rather than only a material.

Earth at a glance

Traditional Chinese cosmology links each element with a season, a direction, a colour and more. The New World Encyclopedia lists these correspondences for Earth:

• Season: the change of seasons (the last month of each season)
• Direction: the centre
• Colour: yellow
• Planet: Saturn
• Heavenly creature: the Yellow Dragon (or Yellow Qilin)
• Climate: damp
• Heavenly Stems: Wu (yang) and Ji (yin)

Earth years

Every Chinese year is named by pairing one of ten Heavenly Stems with one of twelve Earthly Branches, the system the Hong Kong Observatory describes in its guide to the stems and branches. The branch gives the year's animal; the stem gives its element. Two stems belong to Earth: Wu, the yang form, and Ji, the yin form, as the table of stems in Wikipedia's article on the sexagenary cycle shows.

Because the ten stems repeat every ten years, each element covers two years in a row, once a decade. Wikipedia notes that 1984 was a Jia-zi year, the start of the present sixty-year cycle; counting from there gives a simple rule: Earth years end in 8 or 9. These are the Earth years from 1944 to 2035:

• 1948 Earth Rat (Wu, yang)
• 1949 Earth Ox (Ji, yin)
• 1958 Earth Dog (Wu, yang)
• 1959 Earth Pig (Ji, yin)
• 1968 Earth Monkey (Wu, yang)
• 1969 Earth Rooster (Ji, yin)
• 1978 Earth Horse (Wu, yang)
• 1979 Earth Goat (Ji, yin)
• 1988 Earth Dragon (Wu, yang)
• 1989 Earth Snake (Ji, yin)
• 1998 Earth Tiger (Wu, yang)
• 1999 Earth Rabbit (Ji, yin)
• 2008 Earth Rat (Wu, yang)
• 2009 Earth Ox (Ji, yin)
• 2018 Earth Dog (Wu, yang)
• 2019 Earth Pig (Ji, yin)
• 2028 Earth Monkey (Wu, yang)
• 2029 Earth Rooster (Ji, yin)

The most recent Earth years were 2018 and 2019 (the Earth Dog and the Earth Pig), and the next ones are 2028 and 2029 (the Earth Monkey and the Earth Rooster).

One important detail: the Chinese year starts at Chinese New Year, in late January or February, not on 1 January. Someone born in January 2018, before that year's Chinese New Year, still belongs to the previous year and its element. Our zodiac sign checker uses the exact new-year date for every year.

Yang and yin Earth

Each element appears twice in the cycle, once in a yang form and once in a yin form. Wu years are yang Earth, and they always fall on yang animals (Rat, Tiger, Dragon, Horse, Monkey and Dog). Ji years are yin Earth, and they always fall on yin animals (Ox, Rabbit, Snake, Goat, Rooster and Pig). In the list above, the years ending in 8 are yang and the years ending in 9 are yin.

Yang is traditionally the more outward, active side and yin the more inward, receptive side. Neither is better than the other: both are needed, and every element moves between them.

How Earth works with the other elements

The five elements are linked by two traditional cycles, which the New World Encyclopedia and Wikipedia both describe. In the generating cycle, each element feeds the next: Wood feeds Fire, Fire creates Earth, Earth bears Metal, Metal carries Water and Water nourishes Wood. In the overcoming cycle, each element keeps another in check: Wood parts Earth, Earth absorbs Water, Water quenches Fire, Fire melts Metal and Metal chops Wood. For Earth, that means:

• Fire supports Earth: Fire creates Earth, leaving ash that becomes soil.
• Earth supports Metal: Earth bears Metal, as ores and minerals form inside the ground.
• Wood restrains Earth: Wood parts Earth, as roots break up and hold the soil.
• Earth restrains Water: Earth absorbs Water, as river banks and dams hold a flood.

In compatibility readings, elements that follow each other in the generating cycle are traditionally said to support each other, and those linked by the overcoming cycle are said to need more balance. Our five elements guide shows both cycles for all five elements, and the compatibility calculator compares the signs of any two birth dates.

The Earth personality

In our readings on this site, the Earth element describes a style of energy that colours a person's zodiac sign. We describe it like this: Earth is the element of the harvest: steady, patient, built to last. People born in an Earth year are usually the most dependable person in the room: the one who shows up on time, keeps their word, and thinks several years ahead instead of several days. That same groundedness can tip into over-caution, though, making it hard for Earth personalities to take the leap when a moment actually calls for risk.

Remember that the element is only one part of a traditional reading, alongside the animal, yin or yang, and in fuller readings the month, day and hour of birth. Two people with the same element can be very different, and the zodiac is a cultural tradition for reflection and fun, not a scientific test of character.

Living with Earth energy

Whatever your own element, traditional advice uses Earth as a reminder of certain qualities:

• Build foundations: traditional advice links Earth with planning, saving and keeping promises.
• Be the steady one: Earth's strength is reliability, the person others can count on.
• Don't let caution become standing still: sometimes the field has to be ploughed.

To find your own element and animal from your birth date, use our zodiac sign checker, and see how each day's animal affects your sign in the daily fortune.

Frequently asked questions

Which years are Earth years in the Chinese zodiac?

Years ending in 8 or 9, for example 2008, 2009, 2028 and 2029. The year starts at Chinese New Year, so January and early February births may belong to the previous year.

What season, direction and colour go with Earth?

Traditionally Earth goes with the change of seasons, the centre and yellow.

Which element supports Earth?

Fire, in the generating cycle: Fire creates Earth, leaving ash that becomes soil. Earth in turn supports Metal.

Is my element the same as my zodiac animal?

No. Your animal comes from the year's Earthly Branch and your element from its Heavenly Stem. Each animal can have any of the five elements, so the same animal and element combination returns only every sixty years.

Sources and further reading

• New World Encyclopedia: “Wu xing” — the generating and overcoming cycles, and the season, direction, colour, planet, heavenly creature, climate and Heavenly Stems that go with each element.
• Wikipedia: “Wuxing (Chinese philosophy)” — the meaning of wuxing as processes or phases rather than physical substances, the two cycles, and the stems that belong to each element.
• Wikipedia: “Sexagenary cycle” — the ten Heavenly Stems with their element and yin or yang, and 1984 as the Jia-zi year that began the present sixty-year cycle.
• Hong Kong Observatory: “Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches” — the ten stems and twelve branches that name every year in the 60-year Gan-Zhi cycle.

Traditional Chinese zodiac reading for culture and entertainment, not a scientific prediction. Element correspondences follow the sources cited above.