1900 Chinese Zodiac: Year of the Metal Rat
The Metal Rat year ran from January 31, 1900 through February 18, 1901. That’s an early opening — the lunar new year arrived four days before Start of Spring caught up on February 4, one of the years where the lunar calendar moves first.
The gap matters because a handful of early-February births sit on opposite sides of the boundary depending on which calendar convention you use. We sort out who falls where before anything else on the page.
Born in 1900? The quick answer
Still the 1899 zodiac year, which didn’t close until January 30. A birthday in the first month of 1900 lands here, in Pig, not Rat.
The 1900 zodiac year, stem-branch 庚子. It closes the day before the next lunar new year — a birth in the first weeks of February 1901, up to February 18, is still a Metal Rat, not yet a Metal Ox.
1900 at a glance
| Detail | 1900 |
|---|---|
| Zodiac animal | Rat (鼠 shǔ) |
| Element | Metal (Yang) |
| Stem-branch | 庚子 (gēng zǐ) |
| Exact dates | January 31, 1900 – February 18, 1901 |
| Sign before | Earth Pig (until January 30, 1900) |
| Sign after | Metal Ox (from February 19, 1901) |
| Age in 2026 (if born during calendar year 1900) | 125 or 126 |
| Traditional allies | Dragon, Monkey (trine), Ox (six-harmony) |
| Clash sign | Horse |
Born in late January or early February 1900?
On the lunar-year convention this page uses — the standard for looking up a birth-year sign — the Metal Rat year runs from January 31, 1900 to February 18, 1901. Anyone born January 1 through January 30, 1900 is still an Earth Pig carried over from 1899.
The solar side runs a few days behind the lunar side this year. Start of Spring (Lìchūn) fell on February 4, 1900, four days after the lunar new year on January 31. Many BaZi practitioners treat Lìchūn, not the lunar new year, as the boundary, so a birth between January 31 and February 3 already counts as Metal Rat under the lunar convention this page follows, while still reading as Earth Pig under the solar convention. A February 4 birth needs the exact time and place, since Lìchūn begins at a specific moment that day, not at midnight. The January–February boundary guide lays out both methods side by side.
What a Metal Rat actually is
“Rat” names the animal; the element rides on top of it. 1900 is written 庚子 (gēng zǐ) — Yang Metal on the stem, sitting above a branch that tradition assigns to Water. In the traditional five-element generating cycle, Metal generates Water, so this is read as the stem feeding the branch. That is the same generating direction as 1902’s 壬寅, where a Water stem feeds a Wood branch — two different links in the same five-element cycle.
In folklore the Rat is the trickster that finishes first: the animal that won the Great Race not through size or speed but by riding across the river on the Ox’s back and hopping off right at the line, claiming the lead sign in the twelve-year cycle through quick thinking rather than brute strength. Metal is said to sharpen that cleverness into something more decisive and less forgiving — a sharper edge than a plain Water or Wood Rat would carry. Read that as the symbolic reading tradition offers, not a claim about any specific person born that year.
A caution named after the Rat: 投鼠忌器
投鼠忌器 (tóu shǔ jì qì) — literally “throw at the rat, but fear breaking the vessel” — comes from the Han-dynasty statesman Jia Yi’s memorial to the throne, recorded in the Book of Han (Hàn Shū), biography of Jia Yi: “里谚曰：欲投鼠而忌器，此善谕也” — “a village saying goes, ‘wanting to hit the rat but fearing to damage what’s beside it’ — that’s a fitting comparison.” Jia Yi used the proverb to describe why officials near the throne hesitated to move against wrongdoers who sat too close to power: strike at the rat, and the valuable vessel beside it might shatter too.
The saying has since settled into everyday use for any situation where caution about collateral damage stops decisive action. It’s a fitting cultural pairing for a Rat year page for a different reason than most idioms chosen here: rather than describing the animal’s temperament directly, it’s built around the Rat as a stand-in for a problem that has to be handled carefully — a small reminder that the same animal credited with cleverness in the zodiac legend also shows up in classical Chinese as shorthand for “the pest you can’t just strike at carelessly.”
The pillar 1900 shares with 2020
The stem-branch 庚子 is one point on the sexagenary cycle, and it returns on a fixed sixty-year beat:
| Metal Rat year | Age in 2026 for calendar-year births |
|---|---|
| 1840 | A nineteenth-century cohort; no longer living |
| 1900 | 125 or 126 years old |
| 1960 | 65 or 66 years old |
| 2020 | 5 or 6 years old |
The most recent recurrence is 2020, two complete sixty-year cycles after 1900. A person born during the 2020 Metal Rat year carries the exact same 庚子 pillar as someone born during the 1900 Metal Rat year, a hundred and twenty years apart on the same sixty-year wheel. The Metal Rat element page follows what that shared pillar is traditionally held to carry.
Traditional Rat pairings
In the traditional groupings, the Rat forms a three-harmony trine with the Dragon and Monkey, pairs with the Ox in six-harmony, and stands opposite the Horse in the clash. These animal relationships stay fixed regardless of which element rides a given Rat year; Metal changes the temperament, not the pairing. The Rat compatibility guide works through each pairing in full.
The years on either side
| Year | Sign | Zodiac dates |
|---|---|---|
| 1899 | Earth Pig | – Jan 30, 1900 |
| 1900 | Metal Rat | Jan 31, 1900 – Feb 18, 1901 |
| 1901 | Metal Ox | from Feb 19, 1901 |
Both neighboring years already have their own pages here — the Earth Pig year right before this one, and the Metal Ox year right after, are both one click away. The Rat animal guide follows the five elements through every Rat year, including this one.
1900 Chinese zodiac: common questions
What is the Chinese zodiac sign for 1900?
1900 is a Rat year — the Metal Rat — for anyone born on or after January 31, 1900.
What are the exact 1900 Metal Rat dates?
January 31, 1900 to February 18, 1901. Anything before January 31, 1900 belongs to the Earth Pig year of 1899.
What element is 1900 in the Chinese zodiac?
Metal. The full stem-branch name is 庚子 (gēng zǐ), a Yang Metal year, sitting on the Rat’s own Water branch.
Is everyone born in 1900 a Metal Rat?
No. Births from January 1 to January 30, 1900 fall in the previous Earth Pig year. Someone born in the first weeks of February 1901, up to February 18, is still a 1900 Metal Rat.
How does Start of Spring affect the 1900 boundary?
Start of Spring fell on February 4, 1900, four days after the lunar new year on January 31. Births between January 31 and February 3 already read as Metal Rat under the lunar convention this page follows, while still counting as Earth Pig under the solar convention some BaZi practitioners use. A February 4 birth needs the exact time and location, because Lìchūn begins at a specific moment during that day.
What years share the 1900 Metal Rat pillar?
The 庚子 Metal Rat pillar returns every sixty years: 1840, 1900, 1960 and 2020. A person born during the 2020 Metal Rat year carries the exact same stem-branch as someone born during the 1900 Metal Rat year, two sixty-year turns apart.
How old is someone born in 1900 in 2026?
125 or 126 in 2026, depending on whether their birthday has passed.
Looking this up for someone born in 1900?
A public page stops at the shared facts. If what brought you here is an ancestor’s record — a date in an old register, a name on a family tree you’re trying to fill in — two things carry a birth year further than a page like this can:
Where to go next
Editorial note
The calendar side of this page — the January 31, 1900 start, the February 18, 1901 close, and the 庚子 (gēng zǐ) stem-branch — follows standard sexagenary-cycle calculation and is cross-checked against the neighboring 1901 almanac already used on this site. Because the Hong Kong Observatory’s online calendar-conversion series begins in 1901, the February 4, 1900 Start of Spring date and underlying solar-term calculation on this page are instead drawn from the historical solar-term tables published by the Purple Mountain Observatory (中国科学院紫金山天文台) and cross-checked against asia-home.com’s independent Chinese-calendar conversion. The 投鼠忌器 idiom and its origin in the Book of Han, biography of Jia Yi, are documented in standard Chinese idiom references. Everything touching character, compatibility and fortune is symbolic tradition, shared for cultural interest. It is not a prediction, and it is not medical, financial or relationship advice.