Whole sign houses
Whole sign houses are the oldest house system in Western astrology, and the simplest: your Rising sign becomes the entire first house, and each sign after it takes the next house in order.
How the system works
If your Ascendant falls anywhere in Libra, then all of Libra is your first house, all of Scorpio is your second, all of Sagittarius your third, and so on around the wheel. Twelve signs, twelve houses, one to one.
Any planet in Libra is therefore in your first house, regardless of degree. This is the feature that makes the system readable: there are no partial houses and no planets sitting awkwardly across a boundary.
How it differs from Placidus
Placidus and the other quadrant systems divide the chart by time or space rather than by sign, which produces houses of unequal size and cusps that fall in the middle of a sign. A planet can then sit in one sign but a different house than whole sign would give it.
The practical difference is largest at high latitudes, where quadrant systems distort badly — houses can become enormous or nearly vanish above the Arctic Circle, while whole sign houses stay stable anywhere on Earth.
Why this calculator uses it
It is the system Hellenistic astrology was originally written in, it produces the same answer everywhere on the planet, and it is far easier to read for someone seeing their chart for the first time. It is also the reason your house placements here may differ from a site that defaults to Placidus.
Your own chart
Five questions, and the placements above are calculated for the minute you arrived.
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Common questions
- Is whole sign or Placidus more accurate?
- Neither is measurably more accurate; they are different conventions for dividing the same sky. Whole sign is older and simpler, Placidus is the modern default in much of the West. Most astrologers pick one and stay consistent.
- Why do my houses differ from another site?
- Almost always the house system. If the other site uses Placidus and this one uses whole sign, planets near a sign boundary will land in different houses even though the underlying positions are identical.