干支 · 卯 (う)
Rabbit — The Diplomat
The Rabbit is one of the twelve Chinese zodiac animals, a yin sign with Wood as its fixed element (recent Rabbit years include 1987, 1999, 2011, 2023, 2035). Gentle, refined, and artistic. Rabbits avoid conflict and create beauty through grace and good taste. People born in a Rabbit year are typically graceful, kind and diplomatic.
Personality
The Rabbit is gentle, elegant, and compassionate. Those born in this year possess refined taste, diplomacy, and a talent for creating harmony.
Strengths
Strengths in depth
The Rabbit's defining strengths run to diplomacy, graciousness, good taste, compassion and attention to detail — the practical gifts that let a Rabbit turn its natural temperament into real results.
Challenges
Challenges to watch
Left unchecked, the Rabbit's weaknesses tend to surface as timidity, pessimism, over-cautious, superficiality and escapism. Naming these patterns early is how a Rabbit keeps its strengths from tipping into their shadow side.
Best careers
The Rabbit is well suited to careers such as art, music, literature, healthcare, fashion and politics, where its strengths have room to work.
Best matches
Difficult pairings
Who matches the Rabbit
The Rabbit matches most naturally with the Goat, the Pig and the Dog — the animals of its zodiac trine, who share a compatible rhythm and tend to bring out the Rabbit at its most graceful. These trine partners usually make the easiest friendships and the steadiest love matches. Harmony runs thinnest with the Rooster, the Rat and the Dragon, whose pace and priorities pull against the Rabbit's temperament rather than complementing it. Sharpest of all is the clash with the Rooster, the Rabbit's opposite sign: seated six positions away on the twelve-year wheel, it meets the Rabbit head-on, which is why traditional Chinese astrology calls it the Rabbit's secret enemy. None of these pairings is a fixed verdict — knowing where friction naturally lives is what lets any Rabbit relationship be understood and made to last.
Rabbit years
A Rabbit year comes around once every twelve years, when the Rabbit takes its turn as the ruling animal of the Chinese zodiac's repeating cycle. Recent and upcoming Rabbit years include 1987, 1999, 2011, 2023, 2035 — anyone born within one of those lunar years carries the Rabbit as their birth-year sign. The twelve animals always run in the same fixed order, so a Rabbit year follows the Tiger's and gives way to the Dragon's. The Rabbit's own fixed element is Wood, but each pass through the cycle also carries one of the five heavenly elements — Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water — in a sixty-year rotation, so no two Rabbit years feel quite the same. Counting forward in twelve-year steps, the next Rabbit year after 2035 falls in 2047.
Frequently asked questions
What years are the Rabbit?
Recent Year of the Rabbit dates include 1987, 1999, 2011, 2023, 2035. The Rabbit is a yin sign whose fixed element is Wood.
What is the Rabbit personality?
The Rabbit is typically graceful, kind, diplomatic, artistic and considerate. Gentle, refined, and artistic. Rabbits avoid conflict and create beauty through grace and good taste.
Which signs match the Rabbit?
The Rabbit matches best with the Goat, Pig and Dog. These pairings share the natural harmony of the Chinese zodiac trine the Rabbit belongs to.
What is the Rabbit's enemy sign?
The Rabbit's secret enemy is the Rooster, the sign that sits directly opposite it — six positions away on the twelve-year wheel. This head-on opposition is the sharpest natural clash of temperament in the Chinese zodiac, which is why tradition names the Rooster the Rabbit's enemy sign.
What element is the Rabbit?
The Rabbit's fixed element is Wood, and the Rabbit is a yin sign. This Wood polarity stays constant behind the rotating heavenly element that colours each individual Rabbit year.
When is the next Rabbit year?
Rabbit years recur every twelve years. The most recent example years are 1987, 1999, 2011, 2023, 2035; counting forward, the next Rabbit year after 2035 falls in 2047.