Heavenly Stems & Earthly Branches

Y M D period

Year Pillar

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Month Pillar

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Day Pillar

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Hour Pillar

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Zodiac—

Five Elements—

Lunar Date—

12 Shichen Table (by selected day stem)

Shichen	Time range	Hour pillar	Nayin

60 Jiazi Cycle

Click any ganzhi to see its nayin, wuxing, zodiac animal and matching years

Reference Tables

10 Heavenly Stems

Stem	Element	Yin-Yang

12 Earthly Branches

Branch	Element	Animal	Hours

What are Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches?

The sexagenary cycle is a traditional Chinese calendar system. There are 10 heavenly stems (甲-癸) and 12 earthly branches (子-亥) which combine into a 60-year cycle.

The Four Pillars

Year Pillar: starts from the Beginning of Spring.
Month Pillar: divided by solar term festivals.
Day Pillar: the ganzhi of the birth day.
Hour Pillar: derived from the two-hour period.

Five Elements & Zodiac

Each stem maps to an element (Jia/Yi wood, Bing/Ding fire, etc.) and each branch maps to an animal in the Chinese zodiac.