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Ten stems against twelve branches, sixty pairs.
Also known as: Stem-branch cycle, Sixty-year cycle
The Chinese cycle of sixty, formed by running ten heavenly stems against twelve earthly branches and used to number years, months, days and hours.
Numbers a year, month, day or hour by pairing one of ten stems with one of twelve branches.
Contexts: History, Public information
Runs to sixty rather than to a hundred and twenty because the two rings advance together: only pairings of matched parity occur, so half the possible combinations never appear. That is the arithmetic fact most accounts of the cycle omit and without which the number sixty is unexplained.
Contexts: History, Public information
Is the dating system behind the names of several well-known events — the Xinhai Revolution, the Jiawu War, the Wuxu Reform — each of which is named for the cycle position of its year rather than for a person or a place.
Contexts: History, Public information
Two rings of written characters, one of ten and one of twelve, turned against one another so that each position pairs one character from each ring.