If you only ever learn one thing about the Chinese zodiac, make it this: the zodiac is built on the twelve earthly branches, not on animals. The branches are a timekeeping system that predates the animals by centuries. The animals were attached later, as a memory aid.
What the branches are
The twelve earthly branches (地支, dìzhī) form a counting cycle used across traditional Chinese calendars, astronomy, and divination. Every two hours, every day, every month, and every year gets one of the twelve.
They're paired with the ten heavenly stems (天干, tiāngān) — 甲乙丙丁戊己庚辛壬癸 — to produce the 60-term cycle known as 六十甲子.
The complete table
| Branch | Pinyin | Animal | Hours | Element |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 子 | zǐ | Rat | 23:00–01:00 | Water |
| 丑 | chǒu | Ox | 01:00–03:00 | Earth |
| 寅 | yín | Tiger | 03:00–05:00 | Wood |
| 卯 | mǎo | Rabbit | 05:00–07:00 | Wood |
| 辰 | chén | Dragon | 07:00–09:00 | Earth |
| 巳 | sì | Snake | 09:00–11:00 | Fire |
| 午 | wǔ | Horse | 11:00–13:00 | Fire |
| 未 | wèi | Goat | 13:00–15:00 | Earth |
| 申 | shēn | Monkey | 15:00–17:00 | Metal |
| 酉 | yǒu | Rooster | 17:00–19:00 | Metal |
| 戌 | xū | Dog | 19:00–21:00 | Earth |
| 亥 | hài | Pig | 21:00–23:00 | Water |
Note the pattern: the twelve hours tile the full day, each one starting on an odd hour. Midnight sits in the middle of 子 hour, which is why 子 runs from 23:00 rather than 00:00.
A note on years: every year on this page is a lunar year. A zodiac year begins at Chinese New Year — between late January and mid-February — not on January 1. If you were born in January or early February, you may belong to the previous year's animal.
How old is the system?
The twelve branches appear in Shang dynasty oracle bone inscriptions (roughly 1250–1050 BCE), where they're used to count days. That's the key fact: the branches are already a complete working system before any animal is attached to them.
The animal pairing shows up much later. The earliest evidence is in Qin-era tomb texts — the Shuihudi and Fangmatan bamboo slips — and the full system matching today's zodiac is recorded in Wang Chong's Lunheng in the Eastern Han dynasty.
Why animals at all?
Simple reason: the branches were a tool for specialists. Ordinary people — farmers, merchants, soldiers — needed to know what year it was, and memorizing 子丑寅卯 alongside ten stems was hard.
Twelve animals, on the other hand, are easy. Everyone knows what a rat is. The animals are a user interface, and they've been remarkably successful: most Chinese speakers today can tell you their animal instantly, while far fewer can name their branch.
How Chinese speakers actually memorize it
Nobody memorizes the animals on their own — not as a list of twelve. What gets memorized is a chant, pairing each branch with its animal, four characters at a time:
子鼠丑牛，寅虎卯兔，
辰龙巳蛇，午马未羊，
申猴酉鸡，戌狗亥猪
zǐ shǔ chǒu niú · yín hǔ mǎo tù · chén lóng sì shé · wǔ mǎ wèi yáng · shēn hóu yǒu jī · xū gǒu hài zhū
Say it aloud a few times and the structure becomes obvious: each four-character unit is two branch-animal pairs, and the whole thing scans like a poem. That rhythm is the entire point — the animals exist to make this chant possible.
It's also why Chinese speakers tend to know their animal but not their branch. The chant is taught to children, and it sticks. The bare branches — 子丑寅卯 — are what you learn afterwards, if you need them at all.
Where the branches are still used
- Years — the zodiac layer, what most people know
- Months — the traditional lunar months map to branches
- Days — still printed in Chinese almanacs
- Hours — the twelve two-hour periods, still the basis of "时辰"
The 60-year cycle
Ten heavenly stems and twelve branches generate a cycle of 60 (the least common multiple). Every year gets a stem-branch pair, and the pairing only repeats after sixty years — which is why the "sixtieth birthday" is a milestone in Chinese culture.
The tiger's page explains how this plays out for one specific animal: why only five of the ten stems can pair with 寅.
Convert any date to the lunar calendar →Enter a date and see its lunar date, ganzhi year name, zodiac animal, branch, and element — with the working shown.