Chinese Zodiac Elements, Five Elements Compatibility, Chart, Personality Types (2024)

Chinese Zodiac five elements, 'Wu Xing' in Chinese (pinyin: wuxíng) refers to the five elements - Jin (metal), Mu (wood), Shui (water), Huo (fire), and Tu (earth). It is also named the Five Movements, Five Phrases, Five Steps or Five States of Change.

The theory of the five elements thinks that the world is composed of these five elements and changes with their generation or controlling relationships. It not only affects the human’s destiny but also makes the universe and its creatures cycle constantly. In China, the theory is a very important part of traditional Chinese culture and mostly used in philosophy, traditional Chinese medicine as well as fortune-telling.

The five elements go in a specific order and one creates or controls the next.

The Generating Cycle (sheng)
(Inter-promoting, begetting, engendering, mothering or enhancing cycle)
Generating: Wood makes Fire burn; Fire creates Earth; Earth bears Metal; Off of Metal runs the Water; Water makes Wood grow.

The Controlling Cycle (kè)
(Destructing, overcoming or inter-restraining or weakening cycle)
Fire melts Metal; Metal chops down Wood; Wood breaks the Earth; Earth soaks up Water and blocks its flow; Water controls Fire.

Each of 12 Chinese zodiac animal signs is associated with one of the five elements. Check the following table to find out the fixed element for each sign:

Also, each animal sign is further divided into the five elements, depending on the year that the sign occurs. Following shows you the corresponding element for each animal in different years. By clicking one of the following links, you could get the personality and destiny for the people with the corresponding element and sign. Each of the sign has a name in Chinese astrology, e.g. Metal Rat is 'Rat on the Roof' and Fire Tiger is 'Tiger Passing through the Forest'. Get to know your name by clicking Names for Chinese Zodiac Signs.

Each element associates with some properties or aspects of nature. The following chart shows you their associations.

I am yin metal pig day metal pig year 1971 female (0 Reply )Asked by D***n

I am going through a very difficult and finding it hard to cope. Please can you help. I am feeling very lost right now. I have been told wood element is bad for me. Even though its my wealth element. I am in yang wood dragon fate with all this wood in the years too. Hoe will I survive this and will things improve. Please please help me. Thank you.

Five elements of each Chinese zodiacs (1 Reply )Asked by L***

Can someone explain me why is the Chinese zodiacs sheep and horse in the fire element and I checked in the five elements they're in the earth section, I thought they supposed to be connected.. Well anyways tysm and have a great day everyone 🙏🥰💖

lucky element (1 Reply )Asked by M***r

Hello, we are having a lot of problems with my son, who was born on 10.04.2006, which element is missing or more in this regard, can you please help with this?

Too weak Bazi (3 Replies )Asked by A***e

hi please tell me how to remedy my bazi analysis Your Self Elements Analysis Wood: 3 | Water: 1 | Earth: 4 | Metal: 0 Fire: 0 Your Five Elements (Wu Xing) have too many Earth and are lack of Metal and Fire. Your Day Master is Water and it needs to be supported by Wood element. Also, you should avoid to have more Fire. Five Elements Score Metal 2.28 Wood 37.1 Water 16.5 Fire 3 Earth 27.5 Same Group Water+Metal 18.78 Different Group Wood+Fire+Earth 67.6 Your Bazi is Too Weak.

Strongest element is lucky element? (2 Replies )Asked by M***s

Hello! I'm very new to Bazi and was reading my chart but I'm a bit confused and have a question about it... because I think that my strong day master is actually my lucky element as well? I've read that you want the elements in your chart to be balanced right? Well, my chart has a LOT of fire and earth. Yin fire daymaster, yang fire hour + month on the heavenly stems, yang fire hour on the earthly branches as well, and then I have 3 earth elements on my earthly branches. Born in a metal year so overall I have 4 fire, 3 earth, 1 metal, and 0 wood + water. Based on this I would think that wood and water are good elements for me as they provide balance to my strong chart but I was reading through my journals & events of my life and thinking otherwise... the best years of my life so far have been 2016 & 2017, which were both fire years, and the absolute worst year of my life was 2014, a wood year, with 2015 not being much better either. Looking at events throughout my life, the best events of my life have often been in fire or earth months, and the worst being in wood months once again. I'm not sure about water yet because what I've seen is too mixed, maybe I'll have more clarity after 2022-2023 though. And finally, I've had wood in my luck pillars since I was 2 years old (I am now 21 so it's ending soon) but my upbringing was horrible and life has had so many downs in ways I can't even get into. I don't mean this in a sad way because I am a very optimistic person, actually, and I know my future is looking bright in spite of it. I'm just being realistic and thinking that it seems pretty unlikely for my life to actually get worse as I exit these wood luck pillars... I would hope so anyway. I have a very limited knowledge so far and I know that looking at the animals adds a whole layer that I haven't even considered yet. But from the little I do understand right now, I'm just wondering why it seems like the best times of my life so far have been during fire years or months when fire is already so strong in my chart? Why wood has been so negative? I wish I had more to say about water but I do not yet. Some very good months in my life have been earth months as well despite it also being prominent in my chart. Thank you for reading and please let me know if you have some insight about this!