Year of the Metal Rat
The Year of the Metal Rat falls in 1960, 2020, and 2080. The animal sets the character, and the Metal element colors it: quick wits and thrift plus firmness, discipline, and clear boundaries. It is a yang year, meaning more active and outward-facing.
Who Was Born in This Year
People born in 2020 (as well as in 1960 and, in the future, in 2080) belong to the “Rat” sign with the “Metal” element.
Important: the Chinese year begins around February 4. People born in January or early February 2020 belong to the previous year of the cycle — check with the calculator.
Personality
The sign’s core quality is quick wits and thrift. Strength: spotting opportunity where others see nothing. Weak spot: anxiety and fussing over trifles.
The Metal element adds firmness, discipline, and clear boundaries, while also making things harsher and more uncompromising. The result is a person whose resourcefulness plays out openly and outwardly: they act first and get noticed.
The same combination applies to the year itself: it favors trade, saving, and any venture that takes careful calculation. Metal, meanwhile, makes everything harsher and more uncompromising.
The Year's Element and Color
The year’s element is Metal, and its colors are white, silver, and gold. Polarity: yang (active; even-numbered years of the cycle).
In Chinese tradition, the color of a year is the color of its element, not a “trendy shade”: it is fixed unambiguously and nobody chooses it. More on the element’s properties is on its own page.
Compatibility
Compatibility is determined by the animal, not the element. The best partners for the “Rat” sign are the signs of its trine; the most difficult match is the opposite sign.
All 78 pairs are covered in Chinese zodiac compatibility, and the sign’s own profile is on its own page.
Years of This Sign
Each animal–element combination recurs once every 60 years — that is the full Chinese cycle, known as jiazi. That is why the Year of the Metal Rat falls in 1960, 2020, and 2080, and the next one will come only sixty years after the last.
The full 60-year table, with years and elements.