The Twelve Earthly Branches (地支)
Twelve characters that carry season, animal, and hour.
In short
The twelve earthly branches (地支, dì zhī) are the fixed sequence 子 丑 寅 卯 辰 巳 午 未 申 酉 戌 亥. Each one carries a zodiac animal, a season, an element, and a two-hour window of the day, and each sits underneath a heavenly stem in a pillar.
| Characters | 地支 |
|---|---|
| Pinyin | dì zhī |
| Group | Foundations |
The branches are where time enters a chart. The stem above says what kind of energy a pillar holds; the branch below says when. That is why the branch is what the month pillar is judged by, and why the season a person was born into shows up in the branch rather than the stem.
The twelve also divide the day into two-hour windows, starting with 子 at 23:00. That single fact creates the longest-running disagreement in the field: whether the day pillar turns over at 23:00, when the Rat hour begins, or at midnight. Both schools exist, they give different day pillars for people born in that window, and a calculator has to pick one and say which.
Each branch contains one to three stems, which is the hidden stems layer. 子 holds only 癸, while 寅 holds 甲, 丙, and 戊. The eight visible characters are therefore not the whole chart: there are more stems inside the branches, and a reading that ignores them will misjudge the element balance.
An animal is attached to each branch, which is where the zodiac signs come from. The animal is the popular face of the branch rather than a separate system, so the Rat year and the 子 year are the same year described two ways.
The twelve branches
Each branch carries an animal, a season, an element, and a two-hour window of the day. The window is why the Rat hour starts at 23:00 and why the day boundary is argued about.
| Branch | Animal | Element | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| 子 zǐ | Water · Yang | 癸 | 23:00 - 01:00 |
| 丑 chǒu | Earth · Yin | 己 癸 辛 | 01:00 - 03:00 |
| 寅 yín | Wood · Yang | 甲 丙 戊 | 03:00 - 05:00 |
| 卯 mǎo | Wood · Yin | 乙 | 05:00 - 07:00 |
| 辰 chén | Earth · Yang | 戊 乙 癸 | 07:00 - 09:00 |
| 巳 sì | Fire · Yin | 丙 庚 戊 | 09:00 - 11:00 |
| 午 wǔ | Fire · Yang | 丁 己 | 11:00 - 13:00 |
| 未 wèi | Earth · Yin | 己 丁 乙 | 13:00 - 15:00 |
| 申 shēn | Metal · Yang | 庚 壬 戊 | 15:00 - 17:00 |
| 酉 yǒu | Metal · Yin | 辛 | 17:00 - 19:00 |
| 戌 xū | Earth · Yang | 戊 辛 丁 | 19:00 - 21:00 |
| 亥 hài | Water · Yin | 壬 甲 | 21:00 - 23:00 |
Definitions get you through a chart. Something has to be done with it.
The audit walks the nine areas of a home in the order that matters, with two or three changes per area. It is the practical half of what these terms describe.
Questions people ask about this term
Why does the Rat hour start at 23:00?
Because the branches divide the day into twelve windows of two hours beginning at 23:00, not at midnight. The Rat hour runs 23:00 to 01:00, which puts it astride the calendar day and is the reason some schools roll the day pillar over at 23:00 while others wait for midnight.
Do the branches have elements of their own?
Yes, but a branch is rarely just its own element. Each one hides between one and three stems, and the hidden stems can belong to other elements entirely. 巳 is a fire branch that hides metal and earth as well, which is why counting elements from the visible characters alone goes wrong.
Is the branch the same as the zodiac sign?
The branch carries the animal, so the two travel together, but they are not the same thing. The zodiac sign is a popular shorthand for the year branch. The branch itself also carries a season, an element, an hour window, and hidden stems, none of which the animal sign tells you.
This page has no affiliate links and nothing to sell. The tables here are fixed by the tradition and you can check any of them against a printed almanac. What a chart means for a person is a reading of that tradition, not a finding, so treat it as a way to think about a situation rather than a prediction.