1940 Chinese Zodiac: Year of the Metal Dragon
1940 is the year of the Yang Metal Dragon. The Metal Dragon year runs from February 8th, 1940 to January 26, 1941. If you were born in 1940 on or after February 8, your Chinese zodiac sign is the Dragon and your element is Metal. Born earlier in January? You belong to the year before.
Born in January or early February 1940? Read this first
The Chinese zodiac year does not start on 1 January. The Metal Dragon year begins on February 8th, 1940. That one date changes the answer for everyone born in the weeks before it.
You were born before the new year turned, so you belong to 1939's sign — not 1940's.
Read the 1939 page instead →The rest of this page is yours. Everything below describes the Yang Metal Dragon.
This is the single most common mistake in Chinese astrology, and it is why two people born weeks apart in the same calendar year can have completely different signs.
What a Metal Dragon actually is
A Metal Dragon is someone born in a Dragon year that also carries the Metal element. In Chinese astrology your animal is your zodiac sign (it shapes who you are), and the element is the "energy flavour" running through it that year. So a Metal Dragon blends the Dragon's nature with Metal's energy of discipline, precision and standards — a more specific portrait than the Dragon alone.
Metal in plain terms. Metal is the energy of autumn — refined, clear and quality-focused. It adds structure, integrity and a sharp sense of what matters and what to let go.
They cut through noise and hold a standard others rise to meet.
Rigid Metal can turn critical, perfectionist or emotionally guarded.
Dragon strengths and blind spots
Where you are strong. Dragons carry an unmistakable presence, people notice them. They have big vision, generous hearts, and the courage to attempt what others call impossible. They are natural leaders of large endeavors.
Where it costs you. Dragons can be proud, impatient with ordinary concerns, and demanding of others. Their ambition sometimes outstrips their ability to build slowly.
Work that suits a Metal Dragon
Entrepreneur, executive, artist, politician, visionary founder, public figure, creative director.
Read that as a description of the conditions you do your best work in, not a list you have to pick from. Metal shapes how you work as much as the Dragon shapes what you are drawn to.
Who the Dragon gets on with
In the classical system the twelve animals fall into groups that support each other and pairs that grind. For the Dragon, the natural allies are Rat, Monkey and Rooster, and the hardest work tends to be with Dog and Rabbit.
Lucky colours, numbers and hours for the Metal Dragon
These belong to the Dragon as a sign, which means they are shared by everyone born in a Dragon year. A colour chosen for you works differently: it is picked to feed whichever of the five elements your own chart is short of, and two Dragons can need opposite colours for that reason.
Other Metal Dragon years
The animal cycles every 12 years and the element every 10, so the exact pairing Metal Dragon only comes round once every 60 years. Anyone born in these years shares your sign exactly:
Your birth year is one pillar out of four
Everything above is true of you — and equally true of everyone else born in 1940. Millions of people share the Metal Dragon sign.
What separates your chart from theirs is the month, day and hour you were born. Those three add three more pillars to the one on this page. Together they decide whether your core element — the character at the centre of your chart, traditionally called your Day Master — is supported or drained, which of the five elements you are carrying too much of, which one is missing, and which ten-year cycle you are standing in right now.
That is the part a page about 1940 cannot know. It needs your birth time.
See your full chart, not just your year
Free, and it takes a birth date. Your Energy Chart reads all four pillars and shows the element balance behind them.
or browse every zodiac year →