What the houses divide
The signs divide the zodiac; the houses divide the sky as it looked from your exact spot on Earth at your exact minute. That is the whole difference, and it is why two people born the same second in different cities have identical planets and completely different charts.
A house is a region of that local sky. The first begins at the degree rising in the east, and the twelve run counter-clockwise from there. Which planets fall into which region is what turns a set of positions into a description of a life.
What each house is asked about
| House | Covers |
|---|---|
| 1 | Body, manner, the impression made before speaking |
| 2 | Earnings, possessions, what you count as worth having |
| 3 | Speech, siblings, short journeys, everyday learning |
| 4 | Home, family line, the private self |
| 5 | Play, romance, children, anything made for its own sake |
| 6 | Routine, craft, health, the daily job |
| 7 | Partnership, contracts, open opposition |
| 8 | Shared money, intimacy, inheritance, endings |
| 9 | Belief, higher study, distance, publishing |
| 10 | Career, reputation, standing in public |
| 11 | Friends, networks, hopes held in common |
| 12 | Solitude, the unconscious, what runs without permission |
Why the system you pick changes the answer
Astrologers have argued about how to divide the sky for two thousand years and have not settled it. The planets are identical in every system; only the boundaries move, and a planet sitting near a boundary can land in either of two houses depending on the method.
That is not a technicality. In a typical chart two or three bodies change house between systems, and each change alters what the placement is about. This calculator shows the same chart in every system side by side and marks which of your bodies actually move, so the question stops being abstract.
If a body sits within a degree or two of a cusp, treat its house as uncertain whichever system you use. That is a more honest reading than picking a system and forgetting the ambiguity.
The systems, briefly
Placidus divides each body's daily arc into equal thirds. It is the modern default and what most published interpretations assume. It also has no solution above roughly sixty-six degrees of latitude, because some house circles never rise.
Whole Sign makes the sign holding your ascendant the entire first house, the next sign the second, and so on. It is the oldest surviving system, it has returned to wide use, and it is the right choice for comparing with Vedic or Hellenistic material. In this system the Midheaven floats and often lands in the ninth or eleventh rather than the tenth.
Equal runs thirty-degree houses from the exact ascendant degree. It keeps the ascendant precise and lets the Midheaven fall where geometry puts it.
Porphyry divides each quadrant into three equal parts. It is simple, it always has a solution, and this calculator falls back to it when Placidus cannot be computed.
Regiomontanus divides the celestial equator rather than the ecliptic. It was standard in medieval Europe and is still used in horary work.
Angular, succedent and cadent
The twelve group into three families of four, and the grouping is a better predictor of how loud a placement is than the individual house.
The angular houses are the first, fourth, seventh and tenth. They begin at the four angles of the chart and a planet in one of them is prominent, often visibly so. The succedent houses, second, fifth, eighth and eleventh, follow the angles and describe consolidation. The cadent houses, third, sixth, ninth and twelfth, fall away from the angles and describe process rather than event.
A chart weighted toward the angles reads as someone things happen to and around. A chart weighted toward the cadent houses reads as someone processing, learning and adjusting, which is quieter and frequently underrated.
What an empty house means
Nothing bad, and it is the ordinary case. There are twelve houses and ten commonly used bodies, so most charts leave four or five houses empty. That is arithmetic rather than diagnosis.
An empty house is read through the sign on its cusp and the planet ruling that sign. If Sagittarius sits on your sixth cusp, Jupiter rules your daily work, and wherever Jupiter falls is where that work gets decided. Someone with an empty sixth and Jupiter in the tenth works in a way shaped almost entirely by their public role, which is a specific reading reached without a single planet in the house.
This technique is the main reason a chart with ten bodies can say something particular about all twelve areas of life.
Houses need a birth time
All twelve cusps derive from the ascendant and the Midheaven, and both sweep the entire zodiac every day. Without an hour there is nothing to anchor them to, and this calculator says so rather than defaulting to noon.
If your time is approximate, the practical test is the drift: enter it, then enter it an hour later, and see which bodies change house. The ones that stay put are safe to read; the ones that move are the ones to hold loosely.
Common questions
Which house system should I use?
Placidus if you have no reason to prefer another, since most published interpretations assume it. Whole Sign if you are reading Hellenistic or Vedic material. The comparison in the result shows which of your bodies actually change between them.
Why do my houses differ from another site?
Almost always the system, occasionally the time-zone conversion. The planets should agree to within an arc minute with any competent tool; the house boundaries are a matter of method.
What does an empty house mean?
Nothing bad, and it is the ordinary case. Ten bodies cannot fill twelve houses. Read the ruler of the sign on the cusp and see where that planet sits.
Why does Placidus fail at high latitudes?
It divides each body's daily arc, and above roughly sixty-six degrees some house circles never rise, so the arc does not exist. This calculator falls back to Porphyry and says so rather than printing a cusp that has no solution.
Do houses need a birth time?
Yes. Every cusp derives from the ascendant and Midheaven, and both cross the whole zodiac each day.
What is the difference between angular, succedent and cadent?
Angular houses begin at the four angles and a planet there is prominent. Succedent houses consolidate. Cadent houses describe process rather than event, and are quieter without being weaker.