Sign InEach astrological house corresponds to a specific field of experience and helps to better understand the individual, whether in relationships with others, at work, in love, and so forth. There are twelve houses, just like the zodiac signs, and each is in analogy with one of them. However, unlike the signs, which each always cover 30 degrees of the zodiac circle, the size of the houses can vary greatly from one house to another depending on the place of birth, the exact time of birth, and the chosen house system.
A careful distinction must be made between the sign located on the cusp of a house and any planets that may be found inside that house. The sign on the cusp colors the area involved and gives it a style, tone, and mode of expression, while the planets occupying it reveal the psychological functions or energies that manifest there in concrete ways, sometimes very strongly.
Likewise, a house occupied by one or more planets draws more attention in interpretation because it highlights the corresponding field of experience. By contrast, an empty house does not mean that this area of life is nonexistent or negligible, but simply that it is not emphasized as directly by a natal planetary presence. Its interpretation then depends mainly on the sign on its cusp and on the ruler of that house.
The division into 12 houses, known as house division, is not always the same from one astrologer to another: several methods exist, including Placidus, the oldest one (17th century), equal houses (with different variants), Koch, Regiomontanus, Campanus, Alcabitius, Topocentric, Morinus, and others. Today, the most popular systems are certainly Placidus, equal houses, and Koch.
It should also be noted that most astrologers consider a planet close to the next house to belong to it. The thresholds for moving into the following house vary according to each author's sensitivity, ranging from 1° to 6°, and sometimes even up to 8° or 10°. Stephen Arroyo, for example, recommends a threshold for shifting into the next house of 6 degrees.
Some astrologers, mostly from the old school and now in the minority, prefer not to follow this rule. On Astrotheme, by default, we have chosen the Placidus house system and a traditional position regarding the selected shift thresholds: a planet less than 1° from the next house belongs to it, and 2° in the case of the Ascendant and the Midheaven. It is also possible to change these options in some applications on the site or in the astrological portrait, and to choose equal houses or Koch, or not to apply the shift into the next house.
It is important to know that these shifts into the next house never apply to a shift into the next sign: thus, even a planet at 29°29'29" Taurus is still in that sign, and in no way in Gemini. There is a complete discontinuity for sign changes, unlike house changes.
As mentioned above, these houses each represent a very specific area of life, and we will now give the meaning of each one.
The 1st House, Also Called the Ascendant: The Self, Behavior, Vitality
The 1st house describes the way the subject spontaneously presents himself or herself to the world, the manner of acting, reacting, and coming into contact with existence. It provides information about the initial impulse, personal style, visible temperament, and the immediate impression made on others.
It also concerns physical appearance, facial expression, overall demeanor, as well as vitality and the ability to assert one's presence. It shows how the individual defends personal territory, takes a place in the world, and affirms identity in the concrete circumstances of life.
Essential in any interpretation, it colors the whole chart by giving the general tone of behavior and incarnation. The 1st house of the zodiac is in analogy with the sign of Aries.
To illustrate the 1st house, you will find thousands of celebrity birth charts featuring the 1st house in the 12 signs.
You may also be interested in celebrity birth charts featuring a dominant 1st house.
You can also quickly find your Ascendant and your sign on Astrotheme.
Tens of thousands of examples are also available through the search tool by positions, by aspects, or by categories.
The 2nd House: Money Earned Through Work, Material Possessions
The 2nd house provides information about the relationship to tangible resources, possessions, and everything the subject seeks to acquire, preserve, or develop. It describes the way one earns a living, manages possessions, and secures material stability.
It is not limited to money in the strict sense, because it also sheds light on the sense of value, the need for stability, and attachment to what one owns. It shows what is considered important, what is protected, as well as the way one consumes, saves, or builds assets.
Lastly, this house evokes the appetite for life in its tangible dimension, the taste for comfort, and the need to root oneself in reality. The 2nd house of the zodiac is in analogy with the sign of Taurus.
To illustrate the 2nd house, you will find thousands of celebrity birth charts featuring the 2nd house in the 12 signs.
You may also be interested in celebrity birth charts featuring a dominant 2nd house.
The 3rd House: Immediate Surroundings, Brothers and Sisters, Short Trips, Studies
The 3rd house corresponds to practical intelligence, everyday expression, and the way one relates to the immediate environment. It describes the need to exchange, learn, understand quickly, and transmit information in daily life.
It concerns brothers and sisters, schoolmates, neighbors, close colleagues, as well as all the ties formed within the usual framework of existence. It also provides information about basic schooling, early learning, curiosity, and communication skills.
Lastly, this house governs short trips, regular travel, means of transportation, and all forms of correspondence. The 3rd house of the zodiac is in analogy with the sign of Gemini.
To illustrate the 3rd house, you will find thousands of celebrity birth charts featuring the 3rd house in the 12 signs.
You may also be interested in celebrity birth charts featuring a dominant 3rd house.
The 4th House, Also Called the Imum Coeli: Family, Home, Origins, Heredity, the Father
The 4th house represents the subject's deep roots, inner grounding, family inheritance, and everything that forms the intimate foundation of existence. It speaks of the home of origin, the emotional climate of childhood, and the way the sense of inner security is built.
It also evokes ancestors, family memory, ties to the past, as well as the need to withdraw into a protective place. It provides information about the home one lives in or seeks to build, as well as real estate assets and private living conditions.
An angular house located at the bottom of the chart, it touches the deepest intimacy and the emotional universe. Some authors associate the 4th house with the mother rather than the father. The 4th house of the zodiac is in analogy with the sign of Cancer.
To illustrate the 4th house, you will find thousands of celebrity birth charts featuring the 4th house in the 12 signs.
You may also be interested in celebrity birth charts featuring a dominant 4th house.
The 5th House: Love Affairs, Pleasures, Leisure, Children, Creations
The 5th house provides information about everything that allows the subject to express himself or herself with joy, spontaneity, and creativity. It shows the way one loves, seduces, plays, entertains oneself, and seeks what gives flavor, warmth, and intensity to existence.
It concerns artistic activities, personal passions, leisure, pleasures, and all forms of creation, whether emotional, intellectual, or concrete. It also speaks of romantic affairs, amorous impulse, the taste for risk, and sometimes games of chance.
This house is also linked to children, to the relationships maintained with them, and to everything one brings forth or gives birth to from within oneself. The 5th house of the zodiac is in analogy with the sign of Leo.
To illustrate the 5th house, you will find thousands of celebrity birth charts featuring the 5th house in the 12 signs.
You may also be interested in celebrity birth charts featuring a dominant 5th house.
The 6th House: Daily Life, Everyday Work and Colleagues, Subordinates, Health
The 6th house describes the concrete organization of daily life, habits, duties, and everything that requires method, discipline, and practical sense. It shows how the subject carries out tasks, manages time, and adapts to the ordinary necessities of existence.
It concerns day-to-day work, working conditions, colleagues, subordinates, and the relationship to service rendered. It provides information about the sense of duty, efficiency, personal discipline, and the way one copes with repetitive constraints.
This house is also linked to everyday health, hygiene and lifestyle habits, care, medication, minor functional ailments, and domestic animals. The 6th house of the zodiac is in analogy with the sign of Virgo.
To illustrate the 6th house, you will find thousands of celebrity birth charts featuring the 6th house in the 12 signs.
You may also be interested in celebrity birth charts featuring a dominant 6th house.
The 7th House, Also Called the Descendant: Unions, Marriage, Others, Partnerships, Contracts
The 7th house represents the face-to-face encounter with others, meeting, bonding, and complementarity. Opposite the 1st house, it shows how the subject perceives other people, what is expected from them, and the way one enters into a relationship of equality or confrontation.
It concerns the spouse, partners, associates, freely chosen alliances, and formal commitments. It governs marriage, contracts, lasting collaborations, and everything that implies mutual recognition between two parties.
It also evokes declared adversaries, open rivalries, and visible power struggles. Located on the right side of the chart, it corresponds to the setting of the Sun. The 7th house of the zodiac is in analogy with the sign of Libra.
To illustrate the 7th house, you will find thousands of celebrity birth charts featuring the 7th house in the 12 signs.
You may also be interested in celebrity birth charts featuring a dominant 7th house.
The 8th House: Passions and Crises, Transformations, Death, Financial Investments, Lawsuits, Sexuality
The 8th house corresponds to intense experiences that disrupt the course of existence and force a deep transformation. It speaks of crises, questioning, losses, symbolic rebirths, and everything that drives the subject to evolve inwardly.
It is linked to assets received through others, inheritances, financial investments, debts, lawsuits, and shared material issues. It also shows the relationship to power, dependence, hidden power struggles, and everything involving trust or vulnerability.
This house also relates to sexuality, passions, secrets, occult matters, and psychic depths. The 8th house of the zodiac is in analogy with the sign of Scorpio.
To illustrate the 8th house, you will find thousands of celebrity birth charts featuring the 8th house in the 12 signs.
You may also be interested in celebrity birth charts featuring a dominant 8th house.
The 9th House: Travel, Higher and Abstract Conceptions, Spirituality, Foreign Countries
The 9th house opens the field of distant horizons, whether geographical, intellectual, or spiritual. It describes the impulse toward what goes beyond the usual framework, the need to understand the world as a whole, and the desire to give existence a higher meaning.
It concerns long journeys, foreign cultures, foreign countries, higher education, teaching, and the search for general truths. It provides information about personal philosophy, religion, faith, convictions, and the way one develops a coherent vision of life.
This house also relates to law, legality, and everything that belongs to principles, doctrines, and ideals. The 9th house of the zodiac is in analogy with the sign of Sagittarius.
To illustrate the 9th house, you will find thousands of celebrity birth charts featuring the 9th house in the 12 signs.
You may also be interested in celebrity birth charts featuring a dominant 9th house.
The 10th House, Also Called the Midheaven: Social Success, Professional Destiny, the Mother
The 10th house represents visible achievement, vocation, career, and the place occupied in society. It shows the subject's ambitions, the way one shapes a public destiny, and the general direction one wishes to give existence on the social level.
It provides information about professional success, authority, responsibilities, reputation, and the image one leaves in the outer world. It also indicates the relationship to power, high goals, recognition, and sometimes fame.
Located at the top of the chart, it is opposed to the 4th house and symbolizes elevation beyond the family background of origin. It is also connected with the influence of the mother. The 10th house of the zodiac is in analogy with the sign of Capricorn.
To illustrate the 10th house, you will find thousands of celebrity birth charts featuring the 10th house in the 12 signs.
You may also be interested in celebrity birth charts featuring a dominant 10th house.
The 11th House: Friendships, Collective Projects, Support and Protection in Life
The 11th house represents friendships, solidarity, support, and everything that connects the subject to a human network broader than the intimate circle. It shows the way one integrates into a group, shares common ideas, and receives help along the way.
It concerns projects, hopes, aspirations directed toward the future, and undertakings carried out together. It sheds light on the role played within groups, associations, teams, as well as the interest in collective, social, or humanitarian causes.
Compared with the 5th house, which is more centered on individual expression, the 11th house emphasizes cooperation and the collective dimension of achievements. The 11th house of the zodiac is in analogy with the sign of Aquarius.
To illustrate the 11th house, you will find thousands of celebrity birth charts featuring the 11th house in the 12 signs.
You may also be interested in celebrity birth charts featuring a dominant 11th house.
The 12th House: Enemies, Troubles, Solitude, Hidden Trials, Secrets
The 12th house corresponds to deep inner life, to what partly escapes immediate consciousness and acts in the background. It speaks of diffuse trials, hidden vulnerabilities, renunciations, secrets, and everything that requires a work of stripping away or surrender.
It is linked to hidden enemies, periods of withdrawal, sacrifices, self-giving, and experiences of solitude. It may also concern places of isolation or confinement, such as hospitals, prisons, monasteries, or any space set apart from the ordinary world.
Lastly, this house sheds light on compassion, the effacement of the ego, silent sufferings, but also the spiritual resources born from inner distance. The 12th house of the zodiac is in analogy with the sign of Pisces.
To illustrate the 12th house, you will find thousands of celebrity birth charts featuring the 12th house in the 12 signs.
You may also be interested in celebrity birth charts featuring a dominant 12th house.
Emphasis, Quadrants, and Hemispheres
Tradition classifies the houses because, on the one hand, they do not all have the same importance in terms of the influence they may have on an individual, and, on the other hand, they correspond to different characterological features. These are the three classifications by house emphasis, quadrants, and hemispheres, which we briefly outline here:
House Emphasis
The houses are said to be angular, succedent, or cadent.
This distinction plays an important role in interpretation, because not all houses have the same strength, the same visibility, or the same mode of expression. Depending on the category to which a house belongs, the planets located there act in a more direct, more stable, or more inward way, and their influence does not manifest with the same intensity in the subject's life.
Thus, angular houses may be considered sectors of action and assertion, succedent houses as sectors of consolidation and deepening, and cadent houses as sectors of adaptation, mobility, or preparation. This classification makes it possible to qualify the importance of a planet in a house and to refine the overall hierarchy of the chart.
Angular houses are the houses located at the four angles of the chart: the 1st house (the Ascendant, called AS), the 10th house (the Midheaven, called MC), the 4th house (the Imum Coeli, called IC), and the 7th house (the Descendant, called DS). These are the most important houses in the chart, especially the Ascendant and the Midheaven. They correspond to the major axes of existence: identity, social destiny, roots, and relationships. The planets found there benefit from powerful emphasis and impose themselves more strongly in behavior, destiny, or the image projected to the world.
If planets are placed at birth close to these angles, within 8 or 10 degrees for example, they take on very great importance and, in many cases, become part of the dominant planets. Their energy becomes more visible, more active, and more decisive than that of planets located in weaker areas of the chart.
To illustrate the angular houses, you will find thousands of celebrity birth charts featuring dominant angular houses.
Succedent houses are the houses located immediately after the angular houses: these are the 2nd, 5th, 8th, and 11th houses. These houses are less important than the angular houses and bring less dynamism than they do; however, they provide a certain stability. They correspond to areas in which experience becomes settled, develops, consolidates, or bears fruit over time.
Planets placed in succedent houses often have a less immediate expression than in angular houses, but they gain in endurance, continuity, and depth. They bring constancy in values, pleasures, emotional or material investments, as well as in long-term projects.
To illustrate the succedent houses, you will find thousands of celebrity birth charts featuring dominant succedent houses.
Cadent houses are the next four houses, namely the 3rd, 6th, 9th, and 12th houses. They are even less important than the preceding ones, but they bring a note of mobility and liveliness to people who have many planets in this group of houses. Their action is often more discreet, more inward, or more variable, and is expressed more through adaptation, reflection, service, transmission, or detachment.
Planets in cadent houses are not necessarily weak, but they act in a less direct and less spectacular way. They more readily orient the subject toward elaboration, learning, preparation, interiorization, or distance, depending on the nature of the house concerned and the planets involved.
To illustrate the cadent houses, you will find thousands of celebrity birth charts featuring dominant cadent houses.
Thus, we can say that there is an analogy between the principle of quadruplicity in the signs (Cardinal, Fixed, and Mutable) and the classification of houses into angular, succedent, and cadent houses.
The Quadrants
The zodiac is divided into four quadrants of equal size.
This distribution into four sectors makes it possible to assess the chart's dominant orientation more globally. When a large number of planets are concentrated in the same quadrant, certain attitudes, interests, or ways of experiencing life stand out more clearly than others.
The 1st quadrant consists of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd houses. It corresponds to the construction of the self, personal assertion, the awareness of one's needs, and the learning of an immediate relationship with the environment. These are egocentric levels of consciousness: people with many planets in these sectors tend to see primarily their own interest and do not spontaneously concern themselves with others, but are, on the other hand, especially dynamic, reactive, or charismatic. This is the North-East quadrant.
To illustrate the North-Eastern quadrant, you will find thousands of celebrity birth charts featuring a dominant North-Eastern quadrant.
The 2nd quadrant consists of the 4th, 5th, and 6th houses. It emphasizes rootedness, personal life, the capacity to create, and then to organize existence in concrete terms. The contribution of these houses lies in the areas of sociability, creativity, and work. These qualities may come at the expense of the person's independence, as he or she often seeks to fit into a useful, productive, or emotionally secure framework. This is the North-West quadrant.
To illustrate the North-Western quadrant, you will find thousands of celebrity birth charts featuring a dominant North-Western quadrant.
The 3rd quadrant consists of the 7th, 8th, and 9th houses. It opens the subject to the outer world through encounters, deep exchanges, and the expansion of consciousness. These are purely relational houses, and people with many planets in these sectors will have a strong need for company, to please, to form alliances, or to progress through others. This is the South-West quadrant.
To illustrate the South-Western quadrant, you will find thousands of celebrity birth charts featuring a dominant South-Western quadrant.
The 4th quadrant consists of the 10th, 11th, and 12th houses. It corresponds to social fulfillment, collective ideals, and the distancing of the personality in favor of a broader vision. This is the sector of spiritual and humanitarian action. People with many planets in this sector are rather detached from individual concerns, turn more readily toward the collective, the universal, or the inner life, and are often less interested in the practical side of things. This is the South-East quadrant.
To illustrate the South-Eastern quadrant, you will find thousands of celebrity birth charts featuring a dominant South-Eastern quadrant.
The Hemispheres
The Northern hemisphere corresponds to the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th houses: it is the lower part of the chart, corresponding to a personal, egocentric, subjective, and inward-oriented typology. When it is dominant, it often indicates a strong focus on private life, personal feelings, individual needs, and the inner construction of existence before any projection toward the outer world.
To illustrate the Northern hemisphere, you will find thousands of celebrity birth charts featuring a dominant Northern hemisphere.
The Southern hemisphere corresponds to the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th houses: it is the upper part of the chart, corresponding to a group-oriented, active, objective, and outward-directed typology. When it is dominant, it places greater emphasis on confrontation with the world, relational life, social destiny, exchanges with others, and the search for fulfillment in a more visible or more collective sphere.
To illustrate the Southern hemisphere, you will find thousands of celebrity birth charts featuring a dominant Southern hemisphere.
The Eastern hemisphere corresponds to the 10th, 11th, 12th, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd houses: it is the left side of the chart, close to the Ascendant, and corresponds to a typology of independence and personal action. An Eastern emphasis generally suggests an ability to initiate, to decide for oneself, to feel like the agent of one's own existence, and to rely first on one's own impulse to shape one's destiny.
To illustrate the Eastern hemisphere, you will find thousands of celebrity birth charts featuring a dominant Eastern hemisphere.
The Western hemisphere corresponds to the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th houses: it is the right side of the chart, close to the Descendant, and corresponds to communication, dependence on others, and action in relation to others and according to others. When it is dominant, it often reflects a greater receptivity to the human environment, a more developed sense of relational adjustment, and a tendency to evolve through encounters, alliances, or external circumstances.
To illustrate the Western hemisphere, you will find thousands of celebrity birth charts featuring a dominant Western hemisphere.
Title
Section