The Year of the Horse, According to the Data

Every year between late January and mid-February, the Lunar New Year (often called Chinese New Year) marks the beginning of a fresh cycle in the Chinese zodiac. Unlike the Western Zodiac, which gives a sign based on birth month, the Chinese zodiac moves through a 12-year cycle, with a different animal sign for each year . Your sign is tied to the year you were born, and once you know it, you tend to notice it everywhere.

This year, we’re entering the Year of the Horse. So it felt like a good time to take a closer look at what the data shows and what patterns emerge.

But first: Did you know you have a data zodiac, too? Take our quiz to find out which data zodiac suits your style with data.

What traits are associated with the Horse sign?

The Horse is often associated with energy, independence, and momentum. Symbolism aside, I wanted to see how it actually shows up in population data. How common is the Horse compared to other zodiac signs? And does that answer change depending on where you look?

To dig in, I brought together US birth data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and global birth data from the United Nations and compared how Chinese zodiac signs are distributed across different populations. Then I put all of this into a Domo app, where it could be filtered and compared. Lining those views up helped surface patterns that are easy to miss when you look at one place at a time.

What the data shows about the Year of the Horse

One of the most interesting additions to this year’s data looks at Horse zodiac births by country, weighted by population.  

First, I looked at how many people born during a Year of the Horse were born in each country; these years were 1942, 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990, 2002, 2014, and 2026. Then I layered in population data, so that we can compare percentages of Horses across countries. The visual below displays where the Horse shows up the most and where it appears much less.  

A few things stand out right away. Places like Hong Kong and Hungary sit near the top, with unexpectedly high shares of Horse zodiac births—9.08 percent and 8.66 percent,  respectively. Even Vatican City makes an appearance at 8.66 percent. It’s a tiny population but still part of the global picture.  

On the other end of the spectrum, Mayotte has the lowest percentage of Horse zodiac births in the data set.

Those small contrasts are exactly why this view is fun to explore. The Horse isn’t universally common or rare. Its prevalence depends entirely on where you look and how the data is weighted.

Learn about your Chinese zodiac sign

We built the app so you can explore this yourself: find your sign, zoom out to a global view, and see how zodiac distributions shift by country, year, and population. A few clicks in, and the story starts to feel much more nuanced than a single ranking ever could.

Find your sign and explore the app to see where the Year of the Horse shows up around the world.

And don't forget to take our quiz to find out which data zodiac suits your style with data.