Wei is the eighth of the twelve Earthly Branches (dizhi). Its zodiac animal is the Goat, also rendered Sheep or Ram, its element is Earth, its direction is south-southwest, and its double-hour runs from 1 to 3 pm, the early afternoon. As one of the twelve branches it combines with the ten Heavenly Stems to build the sexagenary cycle of sixty used to number years, months, days, and double-hours in the traditional calendar. The branch names the eighth animal of the twelve-year cycle and the corresponding month and double-hour, carrying the Goat's gentle, artistic associations in the almanac. These are the conventions of the Chinese calendrical and cosmological tradition, in which the twelve branches, paired with the ten stems, structure the reckoning of years and hours.
Wei is the eighth Earthly Branch, corresponding to the Goat (rendered in some English-language sources as Sheep or Ram, since the Chinese term does not distinguish the species as precisely as English does), and to the double hour from 1 pm to 3 pm. Its dominant hidden stem is Ji, giving it the Earth phase, with Ding and Yi present as secondary hidden stems. Wei is a Yin-polarity branch, pairing only with Yi, Ding, Ji, Xin or Gui within the sexagenary cycle, and it governs the sixth lunar month, the last of the traditional summer. Chinese folk demographic patterns show a documented dip in birth registrations in Goat years in some periods, attributed to a folk belief, itself of disputed origin and not supported by any classical source, that people born in Goat years have unlucky fates. In BaZi astrology a chart with Wei prominent is read through the Goat's traditional associations of gentleness, artistic sensitivity and a need for security.