Chinese New Year is fast approaching and thousands of people across Wales are looking forward to the annual festivities with their families, friends and community groups. This year, Chinese New Year falls on Sunday, January 22, and 2023 is the Year of the Rabbit, so many costumes and themed activities will be based around rabbits.
Chinese New Year, also known as "Spring Festival" and "Lunar New Year" marks the beginning of a new year on the traditional lunisolar and solar Chinese calendar. Each year is named after one of 12 animals and festivities are usually centred around each year's specific animal.
According to legend, many years ago, a Chinese Emperor hosted a grand race - and the 12 fastest animals to cross the finish line had years named after them. The winner of the race was the cunning rat, followed by the ox and then the tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and, finally, the pig in 12th place. To get the latest WalesOnline newsletters emailed to you directly for free click here.
In China and other countries that follow the lunisolar calendar, each year is named after one of the animals - in order. With last year (2022) being the Year of the Tiger, for example, this year (2023) is the Year of the Rabbit and next year (2024) will be the Year of the Dragon. Then, 2025 will be the Year of the Snake and 2026 will be the Year of the Horse, and so on.
As the years follow a 12-year series, it's easy to work out which animal represented the year of your birth - and we've made it even easier for you by writing out each of the animals and their corresponding years.
It should be noted, however, that as Chinese New Year falls a few weeks after the new year in Western countries (Chinese New Year tends to be towards the end of January or early February rather than January 1 like in the UK), if your birthday is in January or February, your Chinese Zodiac animal may actually be different to the animal for the rest of the year of your birth.
To check the exact dates for each Chinese Zodiac year, visit ChinaHighlights here, or scroll down to read which animal in the Chinese Zodiac represents the vast majority of people born in each year:
Rat - 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, 1996, 2008, 2020
Ox - 1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, 1997, 2009, 2021
Tiger - 1950, 1962, 1974, 1986, 1998, 2010, 2022
Rabbit - 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999, 2011, 2023
Dragon - 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988, 2000, 2012
Snake - 1953, 1965, 1977, 1989, 2001, 2013
Horse - 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990, 2002, 2014
Goat - 1955, 1967, 1979, 1991, 2003, 2015
Monkey - 1956, 1968, 1980, 1992, 2004, 2016
Rooster - 1957, 1969, 1981, 1993, 2005, 2017
Dog - 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994, 2006, 2018
Pig - 1959, 1971, 1983, 1995, 2007, 2019
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