The 12 Earthly Branches (十二地支, shí’èr dìzhī) are the ordered signs Zi, Chou, Yin, Mao, Chen, Si, Wu, Wei, Shen, You, Xu, and Hai. They are not simply another name for the zodiac animals. The branches are the underlying calendrical labels; animals, two-hour periods, traditional months, and directional systems are correspondences built around that sequence.
In brief: Think of the Earthly Branches as a 12-position indexing system. The same ordered cycle can locate an hour, name a traditional month position, pair with an animal, or mark a direction. Context tells you whether 子 means Zi hour, a Rat year, a northern direction, or the Zi branch in a larger calculation.
Contents
- The 12 Earthly Branches chart
- Branches and traditional Chinese hours
- Branches, months, and the calendar
- Branches, directions, and Chinese compasses
- Branches and the Four Pillars
- Frequently asked questions
The 12 Earthly Branches chart
| Order | Branch | Pinyin | Zodiac animal | Standard shichen | Traditional month position |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 子 | Zi | Rat | 11 p.m.–1 a.m. | Eleventh |
| 2 | 丑 | Chou | Ox | 1–3 a.m. | Twelfth |
| 3 | 寅 | Yin | Tiger | 3–5 a.m. | First |
| 4 | 卯 | Mao | Rabbit | 5–7 a.m. | Second |
| 5 | 辰 | Chen | Dragon | 7–9 a.m. | Third |
| 6 | 巳 | Si | Snake | 9–11 a.m. | Fourth |
| 7 | 午 | Wu | Horse | 11 a.m.–1 p.m. | Fifth |
| 8 | 未 | Wei | Goat | 1–3 p.m. | Sixth |
| 9 | 申 | Shen | Monkey | 3–5 p.m. | Seventh |
| 10 | 酉 | You | Rooster | 5–7 p.m. | Eighth |
| 11 | 戌 | Xu | Dog | 7–9 p.m. | Ninth |
| 12 | 亥 | Hai | Pig | 9–11 p.m. | Tenth |
The month column can surprise readers: the first traditional month is associated with Yin, not Zi. The Hong Kong Observatory’s stem-branch tables show the same month order and the standard modern shichen conversion (HKO reference). These are calendrical positions, not fixed Gregorian months.
Branches and traditional Chinese hours
A day contains 12 shichen, so one branch corresponds to approximately two modern hours. Zi centers on midnight; Wu centers on noon. The complete cycle ends with Hai at 11:00 p.m. and starts again with Zi.
The animal is a memorable parallel label:
- Zi hour is also called Rat hour.
- Mao hour is Rabbit hour.
- Wu hour is Horse hour.
- You hour is Rooster hour.
The branch is more precise culturally because it remains the technical label used in calendars and stem-branch combinations. Saying “Horse hour” is accessible; saying “Wu” also tells a reader where the period sits in the branch sequence.
Use our 12 Shichen chart for the full daily lookup. Use Chinese Zodiac Hours when the animal correspondence is the main question.
Branches, months, and the calendar
The branch cycle also labels month positions. In the conventional sequence, the first month takes Yin, the second Mao, and so on, through Chou for the twelfth. A Heavenly Stem can be added according to the year stem, creating a stem-branch month name.
This does not mean “Yin month equals January” in every context. The Chinese calendar is lunisolar, its months begin with astronomical new moons, and leap months can be inserted. Specialist systems may also organize solar months around seasonal nodes. A responsible explanation must identify which calendar rule it uses.
The same caution applies to zodiac-year boundaries. Everyday zodiac guides usually change the animal at Lunar New Year, while some fortune-calculation traditions use Beginning of Spring for a stem-branch year. Our Chinese zodiac birth-year guide explains the ordinary lookup and names that difference.
Branches, directions, and Chinese compasses
The 12 branches can describe space as well as time. Four branch names anchor the cardinal points in traditional directional layouts:
| Branch | Cardinal anchor |
|---|---|
| Zi (子) | North |
| Mao (卯) | East |
| Wu (午) | South |
| You (酉) | West |
The other branches fill positions between those anchors. More detailed Chinese compass systems use a 24-direction ring that combines 12 Earthly Branches with selected Heavenly Stems and four corner trigrams. A museum explanation of a Chinese astrological compass describes 24 sectors of 15 degrees each and shows how its rings combine directions, trigrams, stems, branches, and the 60-pair cycle (University of Connecticut).
This reuse creates an elegant analogy: Zi can mark midnight in time and north in space; Wu can mark noon and south. It does not mean an hour literally “is” a compass bearing. The correspondence belongs to a cosmological indexing system whose meaning depends on the application.
Branches and the Four Pillars
The 10 Heavenly Stems and 12 Earthly Branches advance together to form 60 valid pairs. Year, month, day, and hour can each receive a stem-branch pair. Together, those four pairs are the Eight Characters commonly known as the Four Pillars or BaZi.
For an hour pillar:
- the shichen supplies the Earthly Branch;
- the Heavenly Stem depends on the day stem;
- a complete calculation therefore needs more than the hour alone.
A person born at 6:20 a.m. is in Mao hour under the standard civil-time lookup, so the hour branch is Mao. That fact does not reveal the hour stem without the relevant day calculation. Read What Is the BaZi Hour Pillar? for that narrower method.
Frequently asked questions
Are Earthly Branches the same as Chinese zodiac animals?
No. Each branch corresponds to an animal, but the branch is the underlying sign. Zi corresponds to Rat, Chou to Ox, and so on through Hai/Pig.
Why does the first month use Yin instead of Zi?
Traditional branch months follow a conventional calendrical order in which Yin is first and Chou is twelfth. The hour and year cycles can still begin their displayed sequence with Zi; one shared vocabulary can have different starting positions in different applications.
Do Earthly Branches have elements?
They receive Five Phase and yin-yang correspondences in traditional systems, but those associations are not the same as the Heavenly Stems. Avoid reducing a branch to a single element without naming the method being used.
Which branch is noon?
Wu (午). Wu hour runs from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in the standard conversion and corresponds to the Horse.
Which branch is north?
Zi anchors north in traditional branch-direction layouts. Mao anchors east, Wu south, and You west.
One sequence, several kinds of order
The Earthly Branches make more sense when read as a reusable 12-position language. Hours, months, animals, and directions are connected without becoming interchangeable. Learning Zi through Hai once gives you a foundation for reading Chinese calendars, compasses, historical time, zodiac charts, and the Four Pillars with much less confusion.