Stamps of 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac have been issued in more than 80 countries over 59 years to become the world's longest-running stamp theme, according to a report Wednesday.

Since 1950, these countries have issued more than 2,000 stamps depicting the traditional Chinese Zodiac animal signs, or "shengxiao", said Zhou Zhihua, senior member of All-China Philatelic Federation, at the ongoing World Stamp Exhibition in Luoyang City in central China's Henan Province.

About 2,000 years ago, the Chinese began to use 12 animals in a cycle to represent the lunar years. The zodiac sequence starts with rat, followed by ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig.

"Japan, which shares the traditional culture with China, issued the world's earliest shengxiao stamp in 1950. It was a tiger design," he said. "From then on, the Republic of Korea and other Asian countries followed Japan to issue shengxiao stamps."

In 1980, China issued its first shengxiao stamp with a golden monkey design.

"The stamp was only 0.08 yuan (about 1 U.S. cent), but the value has surged to about 4,000 yuan now. That's a whopping 50,000 times!" Zhou said.

Despite the Chinese origin of the shengxiao, a dozen of the countries neighboring China have the same custom, which influences a population of nearly two billion. People without the custom also have growing interests in shengxiao philately. The United States issued the stamp of rooster in 1993. France issued an ox stamp this year, he said.

Zhou said the issuance day of shengxiao stamps has become a "festival for stamp lovers," some of whom queue for more than 10 hours to buy just a few stamps in the morning.

"Some foreign collectors never came to China, but they told me they know under which animal signs they were born. The shengxiao stamps are a cultural ambassador for the Chinese people."

(Xinhua News Agency April 17, 2009)