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The 12 houses in astrology

A birth chart is divided into twelve houses. The signs show how a planet behaves; the houses show where in life it shows up: money, home, love, work, friends and so on. Each house below has its own page with what it rules, its natural sign and ruler, and how large it can get.

The twelve houses, their natural signs and rulers
House	Rules	Natural sign	Ruler	Type
1st house	Self, body and first impressions	♈︎ Aries	Mars	Angular
2nd house	Money, possessions and self-worth	♉︎ Taurus	Venus	Succedent
3rd house	Communication, siblings, neighbors and short trips	♊︎ Gemini	Mercury	Cadent
4th house	Home, family, roots and private life	♋︎ Cancer	Moon	Angular
5th house	Creativity, romance, play and children	♌︎ Leo	Sun	Succedent
6th house	Daily work, routines, service and health habits	♍︎ Virgo	Mercury	Cadent
7th house	Partnership, marriage and open rivals	♎︎ Libra	Venus	Angular
8th house	Shared resources, intimacy, debt and transformation	♏︎ Scorpio	Mars, Pluto	Succedent
9th house	Higher learning, travel, beliefs and publishing	♐︎ Sagittarius	Jupiter	Cadent
10th house	Career, status, reputation and public role	♑︎ Capricorn	Saturn	Angular
11th house	Friends, groups, networks and hopes	♒︎ Aquarius	Saturn, Uranus	Succedent
12th house	Solitude, the unconscious, retreat and hidden matters	♓︎ Pisces	Jupiter, Neptune	Cadent

What the houses are

The houses come from the turning of the sky over a single day. At the moment of your birth, the horizon and the meridian split the sky into four quarters, and quadrant house systems such as Placidus divide each quarter into three parts. Because the whole circle turns once a day, the house positions change every few minutes, which is why astrologers need an exact birth time and place to place the houses. The signs, by contrast, depend on the date. In the natural zodiac, a teaching tool of modern astrology, each house is paired with the sign in the same position: the 1st with Aries, the 2nd with Taurus, through to the 12th with Pisces.

Angular, succedent and cadent houses

Houses come in three kinds. The angular houses, the 1st, 4th, 7th and 10th, begin at the four angles of the chart and are read as the strongest and most visible. Succedent houses, the 2nd, 5th, 8th and 11th, follow them and are linked with resources and stability. Cadent houses, the 3rd, 6th, 9th and 12th, fall away from the angles and are linked with learning, adjustment and transition. Many astrologers compare the three kinds with cardinal, fixed and mutable signs.

Hemispheres of the chart

The horizon splits the chart into a lower half, houses 1 to 6, and an upper half, houses 7 to 12. Planets below the horizon are often read as more personal and private, planets above it as more public. In Placidus and other quadrant systems, a Sun in houses 7 to 12 means you were born in daylight, and a Sun in houses 1 to 6 means you were born at night. The meridian splits the chart into an eastern half, houses 10 to 3, linked with self-direction, and a western half, houses 4 to 9, linked with other people.

House systems and house sizes

House systems disagree about where the boundaries fall. Whole Sign and Equal houses make every house 30°. Placidus, the default in most software, divides the time each degree takes to cross the sky, so its houses stretch and shrink with your birth time and latitude. These ranges come from our house engine, sampled over a full day:

Smallest and largest size of each Placidus house
House	New York (40.7°N)	London (51.5°N)
1st	20°–48°	16°–61°
2nd	20°–42°	17°–48°
3rd	21°–37°	17°–40°
4th	21°–37°	17°–40°
5th	20°–42°	17°–48°
6th	20°–48°	16°–61°
7th	20°–48°	16°–61°
8th	20°–42°	17°–48°
9th	21°–37°	17°–40°
10th	21°–37°	17°–40°
11th	20°–42°	17°–48°
12th	20°–48°	16°–61°

Opposite houses always have the same size, and the spread grows toward the poles. Inside the polar circles Placidus cannot be drawn at all, so the birth chart calculator switches to Porphyry there and tells you.

Questions

What are the 12 houses in astrology?

The 12 houses are twelve sections of the birth chart, each linked with an area of life: self, money, communication, home, creativity, work, partnership, shared resources, beliefs, career, friends and the hidden side of life. They are based on the horizon and meridian at your birth time and place.

Do I need my birth time to know my houses?

Yes. The houses turn through the whole circle in about a day, so the cusps move on average one degree every four minutes. Without a birth time astrologers cannot place the houses reliably, although the signs of most planets are still known from the date alone.

What does it mean if a house is empty?

Nothing unusual. Ten planets cannot fill twelve houses, so every chart has empty houses. Astrologers read an empty house through the sign on its cusp and the planet that rules that sign, which shows where and how its themes play out.