King Wen (Chinese: 周文王, pinyin: zhou1 wen2 wang2) (1099–1050 BC) was the founder of the later Zhou Dynasty (周朝).
The Zhou state was located in the Wei River valley in present day Shaanxi Province (陝西). King Wen planned the conquest of the current dynasty in power, the Shang Dynasty (商朝), but he died before he could accomplish this.
His family name was Ji (姬). He married TaiSi (太姒) and had at least two sons, Zhou Gong Dan (周公旦) and Zhou Gong Wu (周公武). His second son became King Wu of Zhou (周武王) and completed his fathers wishes by defeating the Shang army at their capital. He eventually became the first king of the new Zhou dynasty.
King Wen is also known for his contributions to the Yi Jing (易經), a manual of divination based on the eight trigrams (八卦), one of the Five Classics (五經, Wu Jing). The most commonly used sequence of the sixty four hexagrams is attributed to King Wen and is ususally referred to as the King Wen sequence.