1901 Chinese Zodiac: Year of the Metal Ox
The Metal Ox year ran from February 19, 1901 through February 7, 1902. That opening date sits unusually late in the calendar — Start of Spring had already arrived fifteen days earlier, on February 4.
The gap matters because two different conventions read that fifteen-day window differently: one says the Ox year has already begun, the other says 1900’s Rat year is still running. We sort out which is which before anything else on the page.
Born in 1901? The quick answer
Still the 1900 zodiac year, which didn’t hand off until February 18. A birthday in the first seven weeks of 1901 belongs to Rat, not Ox.
The 1901 zodiac year, stem-branch 辛丑. It closes the day before the next lunar new year — a birth in the first week of February 1902 is still a Metal Ox, not yet a Water Tiger.
1901 at a glance
| Detail | 1901 |
|---|---|
| Zodiac animal | Ox (牛 niú) |
| Element | Metal (Yin) |
| Stem-branch | 辛丑 (xīn chǒu) |
| Exact dates | February 19, 1901 – February 7, 1902 |
| Sign before | Metal Rat (until February 18, 1901) |
| Sign after | Water Tiger (from February 8, 1902) |
| Age in 2026 (if born during calendar year 1901) | 124 or 125 |
| Traditional allies | Snake, Rooster (trine), Rat (six-harmony) |
| Clash sign | Goat |
Born in early-to-mid February 1901?
On the lunar-year convention this page uses — the standard for looking up a birth-year sign — the Metal Ox year opens February 19, 1901 and runs to February 7, 1902. Anyone born January 1 through February 18, 1901 is still a Metal Rat carried over from 1900.
The solar calendar gets there much earlier this year. Start of Spring (Lìchūn) fell on February 4, 1901, fifteen days before the lunar new year on February 19 — both dates read off the Hong Kong Observatory’s 1901 almanac. Many BaZi practitioners treat Lìchūn, not the lunar new year, as the boundary. Births from February 5 through February 18, 1901 therefore already read as Metal Ox under the solar convention while this page’s lunar convention still counts them as Metal Rat. A birth on February 4 itself needs the exact time and place, since Lìchūn begins at a specific moment that day, not at midnight. Fifteen days is a wide split, so the disagreement below covers a full fortnight rather than the day or two that narrower years leave open. The January–February boundary guide lays out both methods side by side.
What a Metal Ox actually is
“Ox” names the animal; the element rides on top of it. 1901 is written 辛丑 (xīn chǒu) — Yin Metal on the stem, sitting above a branch that tradition already assigns to Earth. Earth doesn’t fight Metal or merely sit beside it; in five-element theory it produces Metal, the way ore is drawn out of soil. That makes 1901 a branch feeding its stem, the same direction as 1924’s 甲子 (Water branch feeding a Wood stem) and 1918’s 戊午 (Fire branch feeding an Earth stem) — three different element pairings on this site now sharing the same branch-to-stem generating direction, each one a different link in the five-element cycle.
In folklore the Ox is the plodder that finishes: patient, dependable, unhurried, the animal that came in second in the Great Race only because the Rat rode across the river on its back and jumped off at the line. Metal is said to sharpen that patience into something more deliberate and less yielding — steadiness with a harder edge than a plain Earth or Wood Ox would carry. Read that as the symbolic reading tradition offers, not a claim about any specific person born that year.
An Ox that isn’t afraid of the Tiger next door: 初生牛犊不怕虎
初生牛犊不怕虎 (chū shēng niú dú bù pà hǔ) — “a newborn calf isn’t afraid of a tiger” — is recorded in the Ming-dynasty novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, chapter 74. In the scene, the general Guan Yu returns from a hard-fought, inconclusive duel with the enemy general Pang De and remarks on his skill; his nephew Guan Ping answers with the proverb already in circulation: “俗云：初生牛犊不惧虎” — “as the saying goes, a newborn calf doesn’t fear a tiger” — warning that youth and inexperience are no reason to underestimate an opponent.
It’s a fitting phrase to land on a Metal Ox page for one specific reason: the very next year on this site’s own calendar, 1902, is a Tiger year. Read in sequence, the two pages sit exactly the way the idiom does — an Ox with a Tiger right beside it. The saying isn’t about this year’s actual animal encountering next year’s; it’s a proverb about fearlessness that happens to name both animals this site’s own chronology puts side by side.
The pillar 1901 shares with 2021
The stem-branch 辛丑 is one point on the sexagenary cycle, and it returns on a fixed sixty-year beat:
| Metal Ox year | Age in 2026 for calendar-year births |
|---|---|
| 1841 | A nineteenth-century cohort; no longer living |
| 1901 | 124 or 125 years old |
| 1961 | 64 or 65 years old |
| 2021 | 4 or 5 years old |
The most recent recurrence is 2021, two complete sixty-year cycles after 1901 — and, on this site, the closest a century-old year page gets to a currently living small child. A person born during the 2021 Metal Ox year carries the exact same 辛丑 pillar as someone born during the 1901 Metal Ox year, a hundred and twenty years apart on the same sixty-year wheel. The Metal Ox element page follows what that shared pillar is traditionally held to carry.
Traditional Ox pairings
In the traditional groupings, the Ox forms a three-harmony trine with the Snake and Rooster, pairs with the Rat in six-harmony, and stands opposite the Goat in the clash. These animal relationships stay fixed regardless of which element rides a given Ox year; Metal changes the temperament, not the pairing. The Ox compatibility guide works through each pairing in full.
The years on either side
| Year | Sign | Zodiac dates |
|---|---|---|
| 1900 | Metal Rat | – Feb 18, 1901 |
| 1901 | Metal Ox | Feb 19, 1901 – Feb 7, 1902 |
| 1902 | Water Tiger | from Feb 8, 1902 |
Both neighbors already have their own pages here: the 1900 Metal Rat year right before this one, and the 1902 Water Tiger year right after. The Ox animal guide follows the five elements through every Ox year, including this one.
1901 Chinese zodiac: common questions
What is the Chinese zodiac sign for 1901?
1901 is an Ox year — the Metal Ox — for anyone born on or after February 19, 1901.
What are the exact 1901 Metal Ox dates?
February 19, 1901 to February 7, 1902. Anything before February 19, 1901 belongs to the Metal Rat year of 1900.
What element is 1901 in the Chinese zodiac?
Metal. The full stem-branch name is 辛丑 (xīn chǒu), a Yin Metal year, sitting on the Ox’s own Earth branch.
Is everyone born in 1901 a Metal Ox?
No. Births from January 1 to February 18, 1901 fall in the previous Metal Rat year. Someone born in the first week of February 1902, up to February 7, is still a 1901 Metal Ox.
How does Start of Spring affect the 1901 boundary?
Start of Spring fell on February 4, 1901, fifteen days before the lunar new year on February 19, a wide gap between the two markers. Births from February 5 through February 18 already read as Metal Ox under the solar convention some BaZi practitioners use, but remain Metal Rat under the lunar convention this page follows. A February 4 birth needs the exact time and location, because Lìchūn begins at a specific moment during that day.
What years share the 1901 Metal Ox pillar?
The 辛丑 Metal Ox pillar returns every sixty years: 1841, 1901, 1961 and 2021. A person born during the 2021 Metal Ox year carries the exact same stem-branch as someone born during the 1901 Metal Ox year, two sixty-year turns apart.
How old is someone born in 1901 in 2026?
124 or 125 in 2026, depending on whether their birthday has passed.
Looking this up for someone born in 1901?
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 February 19, 1901 start, the February 7, 1902 close, the February 4 Start of Spring, and the 辛丑 (xīn chǒu) stem-branch — can be checked against the Hong Kong Observatory’s 1901 almanac or any sexagenary table, and is cross-checked against the neighboring 1902 almanac already used on this site. The 初生牛犊不怕虎 idiom and its source in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, chapter 74, 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.