Free astrocartography map with explanation
Enter your birth date, time and city. You get your planetary lines on a world map, the major cities on each line, cities ranked for love, career or home, and a plain explanation of every line near any city you check. No sign-up.
How this map is calculated
For your birth moment the calculator takes each planet's geocentric right ascension and declination and the Greenwich sidereal time. A planet is on your Midheaven wherever the local sidereal time equals its right ascension, which gives a straight north-south line; the Imum Coeli line is the opposite meridian. The Ascendant and Descendant lines are the places where the planet sat exactly on the eastern or western horizon, found latitude by latitude from the rising and setting hour angle.
Positions come from Astronomy Engine (VSOP87). Every line is checked in the test suite by placing an observer on it and confirming with an independent horizon calculation that the planet is on the horizon or the meridian to within 0.05 degrees. The cities are the 2,500 largest in the GeoNames dataset, so small towns do not crowd out major cities. Line readings follow common astrocartography practice and are written as traditional associations, not forecasts. For the chart itself, open the birth chart calculator.
Questions
- What is astrocartography?
- Astrocartography (also called astro mapping or relocation astrology) takes the moment you were born and asks where on Earth each planet was exactly on one of the four angles: rising on the eastern horizon (ASC), setting on the western horizon (DSC), at the top of the sky (MC) or at the bottom (IC). Joining those places gives four lines per planet. The method was popularized by the astrologer Jim Lewis in the 1970s.
- Do I need my exact birth time?
- Yes. The Earth turns one degree every four minutes, so a birth time that is off by 20 minutes moves every line about 5 degrees of longitude, which is roughly 400 to 550 km at most inhabited latitudes. If your time is a guess, treat the cities on the list as a broad region, not a point.
- How close to a line does a city need to be?
- There is no fixed rule. This tool lists cities within about 800 km (500 miles) of a line and labels them strong within 240 km (150 miles), moderate within 480 km (300 miles) and faint beyond that, which is close to the widths most astrocartographers use.
- Why are the MC and IC lines straight while the ASC and DSC lines curve?
- A planet is on the meridian at the same moment for every latitude along one line of longitude, so MC and IC lines run straight from pole to pole. Rising and setting depend on latitude as well, so those lines bend, and near the poles some planets never rise or set at all. The map stops at 80 degrees north and south for that reason.
- Which lines are best for love, career or home?
- Traditional readings put love on the Venus Descendant and Ascendant lines, career on the Jupiter, Sun and Venus Midheaven lines, and home on the Moon, Venus and Jupiter IC lines. The theme buttons under the map use those groupings and rank major cities by how close they sit to each line. These are traditional associations, not predictions.
- Is my birth data stored?
- No. The lines and the city lists are calculated in your browser. Your birth date, time and place are not sent to the server and there is no account.
Reference, not advice
This is cultural and astronomical reference, not personal prediction or advice.
Astrocartography is documented cultural and historical material; it is not a scientifically demonstrated method of prediction. Do not base a move, a job or a relationship on it alone. See the disclaimer.
Last reviewed .