The 28 Chinese Lunar Mansions: Names, Four Symbols and Star Maps

The twenty-eight lunar mansions form a traditional Chinese framework for locating celestial bodies. They are grouped into four sets of seven: the Azure Dragon, Black Tortoise, White Tiger and Vermilion Bird. Their names also appear in almanacs and depictions of stellar deities.

All 28 mansions, grouped by the Four Symbols

The list begins with Horn. Each map shows one asterism at its own scale, so image size does not indicate the size of a mansion. Each mansion has its own guide to the diagram, reference star and traditional name.

Eastern Azure Dragon

Northern Black Tortoise

Western White Tiger

Southern Vermilion Bird

Reading this star map

This map follows Stellarium’s Chinese Medieval reconstruction: north is up, east is left, and a red ring marks the determinative star. Lines are visual aids, not physical connections. An asterism is not the whole mansion region.

Three meanings to keep distinct

Astronomy: asterisms and sky regions

An asterism is a recognizable pattern of stars; a mansion is a reference region for celestial positions. The twenty-eight regions have unequal widths, rather than dividing the sky into equal slices.

Culture: names of stellar deities

Horn, Heart and Encampment are mansion names. Jiao Mu Jiao, Xin Yue Hu and Shi Huo Zhu are their traditional deity titles. Animal imagery and astronomical diagrams serve different purposes; the star lines need not resemble an animal.

Calendar: the mansion assigned to a day

Our calculator converts the entered date and reads its Chinese almanac mansion. It uses a continuous daily sequence including all 28 mansions. It does not compute the Moon’s physical position at birth.

Common questions

Are the 28 mansions just 28 individual stars?

No. Each mansion is a sky region, and its namesake asterism generally contains several stars. These diagrams show the asterisms, not one star per mansion.

How do 27-mansion and 28-mansion systems differ?

Common 27-mansion systems omit Ox and can use different assignment rules. Before comparing results, check whether a tool uses a daily almanac sequence, a natal mansion convention or the actual lunar position.

Does being born on a Heart day determine personality or compatibility?

No. A daily mansion is a calendar label. Deity imagery can be explored as cultural symbolism, but it cannot establish someone’s personality, marriage prospects or fate.

Sources and image credits

The National Astronomical Observatory of Japan explains the classifications and calendar concepts. Star lines follow Stellarium Chinese Medieval, with positions from HYG v4.1. Our diagrams are attributed under CC BY-SA 4.0 and represent one reconstruction, not the only historical depiction.