The twelve Chinese zodiac animals, in order, are the Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig. The best-known explanation for that order is the Great Race, a folk tale in which the Jade Emperor ranked the animals by the order they crossed a river, and the Rat won by riding on the Ox's back.
The order never changes, and each animal takes one year in turn, so the cycle repeats every twelve years. Here is the full list with the details astrologers attach to each animal, then the story, the versions of it, and the older history behind the wheel.
The 12 animals in order
Each animal stands for one of the twelve earthly branches, an ancient Chinese counting system also used for months, hours and compass directions. The animals alternate between yang and yin, and each has a fixed element of its own, separate from the element that changes from year to year.
| # | Animal | Branch | Yin or yang | Fixed element | Recent years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rat | Zi 子 | Yang | Water | 1996, 2008, 2020 |
| 2 | Ox | Chou 丑 | Yin | Earth | 1997, 2009, 2021 |
| 3 | Tiger | Yin 寅 | Yang | Wood | 1998, 2010, 2022 |
| 4 | Rabbit | Mao 卯 | Yin | Wood | 1999, 2011, 2023 |
| 5 | Dragon | Chen 辰 | Yang | Earth | 2000, 2012, 2024 |
| 6 | Snake | Si 巳 | Yin | Fire | 2001, 2013, 2025 |
| 7 | Horse | Wu 午 | Yang | Fire | 2002, 2014, 2026 |
| 8 | Goat | Wei 未 | Yin | Earth | 2003, 2015, 2027 |
| 9 | Monkey | Shen 申 | Yang | Metal | 2004, 2016, 2028 |
| 10 | Rooster | You 酉 | Yin | Metal | 2005, 2017, 2029 |
| 11 | Dog | Xu 戌 | Yang | Earth | 2006, 2018, 2030 |
| 12 | Pig | Hai 亥 | Yin | Water | 2007, 2019, 2031 |
One catch: each Chinese year starts at Chinese New Year, between January 21 and February 20, so an early-year birthday can belong to the animal before. The full table of dates is in our guide to what your Chinese zodiac sign is.
The Great Race, as it's usually told
The Jade Emperor, ruler of heaven in Chinese folk religion, wanted a way to measure time. He announced a race: the first twelve animals to cross a wide river and reach him would each have a year named after them, in the order they arrived.
The Rat and the Ox. The Rat and the Cat were poor swimmers, so they asked the good-natured Ox to carry them across. In the version told most often, the Rat pushed the Cat into the water halfway over, and as the Ox reached the far bank, the Rat leapt off its head and scampered to the finish first. The Ox, steady and strong, came second.
The Tiger and the Rabbit. The Tiger swam the whole way, fighting a current that kept pushing it downstream, and arrived third. The Rabbit hopped across on stepping stones, then grabbed a floating log that carried it the rest of the way: fourth.
The Dragon. Everyone expected the Dragon, who could fly, to win. It came fifth. It had stopped to make rain for people and their thirsty crops, and in many tellings it also blew the Rabbit's log toward the bank on its way past.
The Snake and the Horse. The Horse came galloping in with the Snake coiled, unseen, around one hoof. Just before the line, the Snake darted out, the startled Horse reared back, and the Snake took sixth place and the Horse seventh.
The Goat, the Monkey and the Rooster. These three crossed together. The Rooster found a raft, and the Monkey and the Goat cleared the weeds out of its way. They landed as a team and took eighth, ninth and tenth.
The Dog and the Pig. The Dog was a fine swimmer but couldn't resist splashing about in the clean water, and finished eleventh. Last came the Pig, who had stopped for a meal and then a nap.
And the Cat? It crawled out of the river long after the race was over, or never made it at all. Its grudge against the Rat, the story says, is why cats chase rats to this day.
Versions differ: the cat and the rat
This is a folk tale, not scripture, and every family seems to tell it a little differently. In one popular version the Cat never reached the river: the Rat promised to wake it on race day and didn't, so the Cat slept through the whole thing. In another, the Rat talked its way onto the Ox's back by offering to sing it a song for the crossing. Some tellings have the Rat tricking the Cat about the day of the race, and in one the Rat cheats the Cat out of a banquet instead of a race.
The details shift, but the shape holds: the small, clever Rat beats the big, honest Ox, and the Cat misses out. That's a large part of the story's appeal for children, and it explains the order neatly. It almost certainly came after the order, though, not before it.
Older than the story: branches, bamboo and the Han dynasty
The twelve earthly branches were in use for counting long before anyone told the Great Race. The animals were attached to them later, and the pairings took time to settle. Bamboo slips from Shuihudi in Hubei, buried in the late third century BCE under the Qin dynasty, record animals for the branches, and other slips from the same period list variants that differ from today's set.
By the Eastern Han dynasty, which began in 25 CE, the familiar order was well established. The philosopher Wang Chong's Lunheng, written in the first century CE, is often cited as the earliest text to name the full set as we know it. Each branch also marks a two-hour stretch of the day, starting with the Rat at 11 pm; our guide to the Chinese zodiac birth hour gives the full list.
The same wheel, different animals
The twelve-year cycle spread across East and Southeast Asia, and some countries changed an animal or two along the way:
- Vietnam has the Cat in fourth place instead of the Rabbit, and the Water Buffalo instead of the Ox. A common explanation is that the old name of the fourth branch, mão, sounds like the Vietnamese word for cat, though nobody knows for certain.
- Japan has the wild boar where China has the Pig, and its eighth animal is usually the sheep.
- Korea also uses the sheep for the eighth year.
Western astrology has its own fixed order, of course, starting with Aries in spring: see the zodiac signs in order and the meaning of the zodiac symbols for comparison. And because the animals sit at fixed points on a wheel, the ones four years apart and six years apart have traditional relationships, covered in Chinese zodiac compatibility.
Questions readers ask
Why is the Rat first in the Chinese zodiac?
In the Great Race, the Rat rode across the river on the Ox and jumped ahead at the finish. Historically, the Rat is simply the animal paired with the first earthly branch, zi, which is also linked to midnight and the month of the winter solstice, the turning point of the year.
Why isn't the cat in the Chinese zodiac?
The folk explanation is the Rat's trick: it either pushed the Cat into the river or failed to wake it on race day. Historically, the Cat was never one of the twelve in China. It does appear in the Vietnamese zodiac, in the Rabbit's place.
Is it the Year of the Goat, Sheep or Ram?
All three are fair translations. The Chinese character 羊 (yáng) covers both goats and sheep, so English writers choose freely. This site uses Goat; the next one begins on February 6, 2027, as explained in our Year of the Goat 2027 guide.
Does each animal have its own element?
Yes. Each animal has a fixed element, shown in the table above, and each year also has a changing element that follows the last digit of the year. The two work together in readings: the Chinese zodiac elements guide explains how.
