Astrology Houses
Astrology houses are the 12 sections of your birth chart, and each house covers one area of life, such as money, home, work or friendship. In modern astrology, planets describe what is expressed, signs describe how, and houses describe where in life. Use the map below to see what each house covers, then open any house for a full reading.
What the 12 houses are
Astrology houses divide your birth chart into 12 areas of life. In whole-sign houses, the entire rising sign is the 1st house, and each following sign forms the next house.
Each of the 12 houses holds a set of related topics. The 2nd house covers money you earn and what you value, while the 7th house covers committed partnerships and contracts.
The 12 houses at a glance
The table lists each house's topics and the sign used as its teaching analogy.
| House | Covers | Natural sign |
|---|---|---|
| 1st House | Self, body, appearance, temperament, how you start things | Aries |
| 2nd House | Money you earn, possessions, resources, self-worth, what you value | Taurus |
| 3rd House | Communication, siblings, neighbors, short trips, early schooling, daily thinking | Gemini |
| 4th House | Home, family, roots, a parent, private life, endings | Cancer |
| 5th House | Creativity, romance and dating, children, play, pleasure, self-expression | Leo |
| 6th House | Daily work, routines, health habits, service, coworkers, pets | Virgo |
| 7th House | Committed partnerships, marriage, business partners, open enemies, contracts | Libra |
| 8th House | Shared money, debts, inheritance, intimacy, crisis and change, death | Scorpio |
| 9th House | Beliefs, higher education, long journeys, foreign cultures, publishing, law | Sagittarius |
| 10th House | Career, public reputation, status, achievements, authority | Capricorn |
| 11th House | Friends, groups, communities, networks, hopes and long-term goals | Aquarius |
| 12th House | Solitude, rest, hidden matters, institutions such as hospitals, the unconscious, self-undoing | Pisces |
The natural sign of a house is a teaching analogy. Your own 1st house may hold Libra or Pisces, and the planet that rules that sign becomes the ruler of your 1st house.
Angular, succedent and cadent houses
Astrologers sort the houses into three kinds, and the angular houses (1st, 4th, 7th and 10th) are the most prominent. Planets in angular houses tend to be the most visible in your life, which is the usual answer to which house matters most.
Succedent houses (2nd, 5th, 8th and 11th) stabilize what the angular houses start, through money, creativity, shared resources and friendships. Cadent houses (3rd, 6th, 9th and 12th) adapt and learn, through thinking, routines, study and rest.
How do I find my houses?
You find your houses from your rising sign, also called the Ascendant, which is the sign rising on the eastern horizon when you were born. Natal Sky calculators use whole-sign houses: your rising sign is the whole 1st house, the next sign is the 2nd, and so on around the zodiac.
To see your own houses, enter your birth date, time and place in the Birth Chart Calculator, or check your rising sign alone with the Rising Sign Calculator.
Other house systems can give different results. Placidus and Koch are quadrant systems that can move a planet into a neighboring house. The Midheaven (MC), a chart angle, can fall in the 9th, 10th or 11th house in whole-sign houses.
An empty house is a house with no planets in it; empty houses are normal. Read an empty house through its ruler: find the sign on that house, look up its traditional ruling planet, and locate that planet in your chart.
How to use the house pages
The cards below link to the 1st House through the 12th House. Choose a house to read more about its life topics.
If you are new to houses, start with The Houses lesson, then open the house that holds your Sun or Moon.
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