The 12 astrological houses, explained: what each one means and how they are calculated

A birth chart has two layers that are read together: the signs, which say how something shows up, and the houses, which say in which area of life it happens. The Sun in a given sign speaks of a way of being; the house the Sun falls in speaks of where you put it to work: at your job, in a relationship, at home.

There are twelve, and the circle of the chart is split into twelve sectors. Each one has a theme, which comes from astrological tradition: it is not a measured result, it is a convention that astrology has been refining for centuries. What is calculation is where each sector starts and ends for you.

Where they come from

The signs are fixed to the sky: they are always the same twelve stretches of 30 degrees. The houses are fixed to your horizon: they depend on the moment and the place where you were born, and they turn with the rotation of the Earth. That is why two people with the same Sun but a different time of birth have the same sign placements and different houses.

The starting point is the rising sign, or ascendant: the degree of the zodiac that was coming up over the eastern horizon. House I begins there. Opposite it, on the western horizon, is the descendant, which opens house VII. On the vertical axis, the Midheaven (the degree of the ecliptic crossing the meridian, high in the sky) opens house X, and its opposite, the Imum Coeli (the bottom of the sky), opens house IV. Those four points are called the angles, and they are the four axes of the chart. The other eight cusps are spread between them according to the house system in use.

Houses are numbered counterclockwise, starting with house I, which begins at the ascendant and sits just below the horizon. Houses 7 to 12 are above the horizon (the visible part of the sky) and houses 1 to 6 are below it. To calculate them you need the time and place of birth; How to find your rising sign explains how that calculation works.

The twelve, one by one

• House I, identity. You yourself: the body, your appearance, the way you start things, the first impression you leave.
• House II, resources. Your own money, what you own, your talents, and how you value what you have and what you are worth.
• House III, words. How you think and communicate, siblings and neighbors, short trips, everyday learning.
• House IV, home. Family, roots, the home you live in, your private life and where you come from. It is the bottom of the chart.
• House V, pleasure. Creativity, play, romance, children, what you do because you enjoy it.
• House VI, routine. Day-to-day work, habits, health, service to others, what has to be maintained.
• House VII, the other. Partnerships, one-to-one relationships, and also open rivals. It is the house opposite identity.
• House VIII, what is shared. Joint money, debts, inheritances, intimacy and the crises that transform.
• House IX, the horizon. Long journeys, higher education, beliefs, what is foreign, the meaning you give to things.
• House X, your place in the world. Career, vocation, public reputation, what you want to achieve. It is the top of the chart.
• House XI, community. Friends, groups, causes, collective projects and hopes.
• House XII, the hidden. The unconscious, solitude, retreats, what is not seen or not said. Traditionally, the house of trials.

Three families

Houses are grouped in threes according to their position relative to the angles:

• Angular (I, IV, VII and X): the ones that start at an angle. They are the most visible and the ones that weigh the most: a planet here gets noticed.
• Succedent (II, V, VIII and XI): they follow an angular house and consolidate: resources, creation, what is shared, projects.
• Cadent (III, VI, IX and XII): the ones that close each stretch and prepare the next step: learning, adjustment, searching, dissolving.

They don't all measure the same

People often say that each house covers 30 degrees, like a sign. That is only true in some systems. In the most widely used one, Placidus, houses have different sizes. With the same moment as the rising sign example (March 15, 2024, 8:00 am, New York), the engine gives:

• House I: starts at Aries 16°29′ and measures 36.7°.
• House II: starts at Taurus 23°10′ and measures 24.6°.
• House III: starts at Gemini 17°44′ and measures 21.1°.
• House IV: starts at Cancer 8°48′ and measures 22.5°.
• House V: starts at Leo 1°18′ and measures 29.8°.
• House VI: starts at Virgo 1°03′ and measures 45.4°.

The other six are symmetrical: house VII starts at the degree opposite house I, and so on. Here the smallest measures 21.1° and the largest 45.4°. The farther you get from the equator, the bigger the difference becomes, and beyond the polar circles Placidus simply can't be calculated: in those cases ASTRA switches to whole-sign houses.

House systems

The method for spreading the eight intermediate cusps is not unique, and it is one of the classic debates in astrology. The most used ones:

• Placidus: divides according to the time each point takes to rise to the horizon. It is the most popular in modern Western astrology.
• Whole Sign: house I is the whole sign of the ascendant, house II the next one, and so on. It is the oldest, and it is widely used again today.
• Koch, Porphyry, Equal: other divisions, which agree at the angles and differ at the intermediate cusps.

In the example above, with Whole Sign house I is the entire sign of Aries, from 0° to 30°; with Placidus, from Aries 16°29′ to Taurus 23°10′. A planet on the border between two houses can change house depending on the system, which is why a chart should say which one was used. ASTRA uses Placidus by default.

How to read a planet in a house

Three pieces of data build the sentence: the planet (what), the sign (how) and the house (where). Venus in Scorpio in house VII: what you value and what you want (Venus), intensely and with no half measures (Scorpio), plays out in one-to-one relationships (VII). It is the same method for any combination.

Empty houses, with no planets, are not switched off: the theme still exists, and you read it through the sign on the cusp and through where the planet that rules it sits. Every house has something to say.

Where each thing falls in your chart

To know which house each planet occupies in your chart you need your time of birth: without it there is no ascendant, and without an ascendant there are no houses. If you don't have it, You don't know your birth time: what you can still read covers what a chart can still tell you.

Calculate your birth chart with date, time and place, and you will see your twelve houses with the planets placed in each one. Over the coming weeks we will cover each house in detail, one per week.