What is astrocartography? Your birth chart on the world map
Astrocartography projects the planetary positions at your birth onto the world map as lines. How it is calculated, what people use it for and where its limits are.
Astrocartography is an astrological technique that projects your birth chart onto the world map. At the moment you were born, every planet was rising somewhere on Earth, setting somewhere, standing at the top of the sky somewhere and directly underfoot somewhere else. Join those places up and each planet draws four lines across the map. In astrological tradition, living near a line, or travelling to it, makes that planet's theme more noticeable in your life.
In short: astrocartography is astrology's answer to "what would this city bring out in me?"
How does astrocartography work?
A normal birth chart is calculated for one place: where you were born. Astrocartography takes the same moment and asks: "What did the sky look like from every point on Earth at this instant?"
Because the Earth rotates, at any given moment each planet is rising over the horizon somewhere and setting somewhere else. That gives four lines per planet:
- AC (Ascendant) line: where the planet was rising on the eastern horizon.
- DC (Descendant) line: where it was setting on the western horizon.
- MC (Midheaven) line: where it stood at the highest point of the sky.
- IC (Imum Coeli) line: where it was at the lowest point, directly beneath your feet.
Ten planets from the Sun to Pluto × four angles = 40 lines in total. What each angle means is explained in ASC, DSC, MC and IC lines.
Why aren't the lines straight?
MC and IC lines are straight lines of longitude running from north to south. AC and DC lines curve, because the point where a planet touches the horizon depends on latitude. Close to the poles some planets never rise or set at all, so the AC/DC lines break off there.
What is astrocartography used for?
People usually turn to astrocartography with questions like these:
- Which cities suit me best for moving or living abroad?
- Which city could bring opportunities for my career?
- Which places favour love and relationships?
- How might a holiday or a long trip affect me?
- Why do I feel so drained, or so alive, where I live now?
Rather than labelling a place "good" or "bad", it is more useful to ask which area of life it brings forward. The Jupiter line highlights opportunity, the Saturn line responsibility and the Venus line relationships and pleasure.
How much does distance matter?
A line is strongest right on top of it and fades with distance. Astrokarto shows this in three levels:
| Distance | Influence |
|---|---|
| 0–300 km | Strong |
| 300–600 km | Moderate |
| 600–800 km | Weak |
| over 800 km | Not shown |
How to use these distances when reading your map is covered in How to read your map.
What do you need for astrocartography?
Three things: birth date, birth time and birth place. The time matters because the Earth turns 1 degree every 4 minutes; a 15-minute error can move the lines by hundreds of kilometres. More in Why birth time matters.
Is astrocartography scientific?
No. The planetary positions and the lines are calculated with astronomical precision, but the meanings given to them come from astrological tradition. It is not a scientific forecasting tool. We suggest treating astrocartography as a lens for thinking about a place, not as something that makes decisions for you.
Create your own map with Astrokarto
Enter your birth details and Astrokarto draws all 40 lines of the ten planets on the world map. Click a city to see the lines nearby, their distance and a short reading. Then ask the AI questions about your own map. Creating the map is free.