Chinese Zodiac Birth Hour Animals: 12 Shichen Table

How to read it

A shichen is a traditional Chinese time division named by one of the twelve Earthly Branches. In modern clock notation each period covers two hours. The sequence is Zi, Chou, Yin, Mao, Chen, Si, Wu, Wei, Shen, You, Xu, and Hai. The first range crosses midnight, so Zi runs from 23:00 to 01:00 rather than beginning at 00:00.

For a birth chart, do not choose a branch from the wall clock before confirming the time basis. Start with the local civil date and time on the birth record, then identify the birthplace, historical time zone, and any daylight-saving rule. Destin Field uses the birthplace longitude and the equation of time to show true solar time before assigning the shichen.

Most corrections stay inside the same two-hour range. The important cases are near a boundary: a corrected time of 08:58 belongs to Chen, while 09:02 belongs to Si. A few minutes can therefore matter at the edge even though the chart does not treat every minute as a separate branch. Keep the recorded minutes instead of rounding first.

The animal names are familiar labels for the same twelve Earthly Branches. Popular English pages sometimes call the result an hour animal, inner animal, or secret animal, but those labels do not create a separate calculated personality profile in this method. The Ancient Eighteen Flying Stars chart uses the corrected branch in its fixed calculation. If the time is unknown or spans more than one range, compare candidates or use the separate birth-time reconstruction journey rather than choosing a favorable branch.