Eight Mansions Kua number: East group or West group?
"Am I East group or West group?" is the first question in Eight Mansions Feng Shui. The school turns your birth year and sex into a trigram, the Ming Gua or Kua, and from that trigram rates all eight compass directions, which are then used to place the front door, the bed and the desk.
Find your Kua number: East group or West group?
Enter your Gregorian birth date and sex to get your Eight Mansions Ming Gua (the year changes at the Start of Spring, around February 4) and the rating of all eight directions. Optionally pick how your home sits to see whether your Kua and the house trigram match. Everything is calculated in your browser.
"Sitting" is the side the building backs onto; "facing" is the side it opens toward. For an apartment, practitioners usually take the main light-facing side or the side with the entrance; schools differ.
How the Kua is calculated
Take your birth year (the year changes at the Start of Spring, not on January 1 or Chinese New Year), reduce it to a Lo Shu number from 1 to 9, and map that number to a trigram:
| Formula (r = birth year mod 9) | Example: 1984 | Example: 2000 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Male | 11 − r, reduced to 1–9 | 7, Dui | 9, Li |
| Female | r + 4, reduced to 1–9 | 8, Gen | 6, Qian |
The Lo Shu numbers map as 1 Kan, 2 Kun, 3 Zhen, 4 Xun, 6 Qian, 7 Dui, 8 Gen, 9 Li. The number 5 has no trigram (it sits in the center of the Lo Shu square), so by tradition a man who gets 5 takes Kun and a woman who gets 5 takes Gen. The formulas for men and women are simply different, which is why a husband and wife born in the same year usually have different Kua.
How we counted: every day from 1960 to 2005 (16,802 days), with the year changing at the Start of Spring, run through the Kua formula for both men and women.
East group and West group
| Kua | Good directions | |
|---|---|---|
| East group | Kan, Zhen, Xun, Li | North, south, east, southeast |
| West group | Kun, Qian, Dui, Gen | Northwest, southwest, northeast, west |
Houses have trigrams too, read from how the building sits: a house that sits north and faces south is a Kan house (East group); one that sits west and faces east is a Dui house (West group), and so on. The basic rule is East-group people in East-group houses and West-group people in West-group houses. When they don't match, you adjust with the bed, the room doors and the desk.
Good and bad directions for every Kua
| Kua | Sheng Qi | Yan Nian | Tian Yi | Fu Wei | Huo Hai | Liu Sha | Wu Gui | Jue Ming |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kan | Southeast | South | East | North | West | Northwest | Northeast | Southwest |
| Kun | Northeast | Northwest | West | Southwest | East | South | Southeast | North |
| Zhen | South | Southeast | North | East | Southwest | Northeast | Northwest | West |
| Xun | North | East | South | Southeast | Northwest | West | Southwest | Northeast |
| Qian | West | Southwest | Northeast | Northwest | Southeast | North | East | South |
| Dui | Northwest | Northeast | Southwest | West | North | Southeast | South | East |
| Gen | Southwest | West | Northwest | Northeast | South | East | North | Southeast |
| Li | East | North | Southeast | South | Northeast | Southwest | West | Northwest |
Sheng Qi, Yan Nian, Tian Yi and Fu Wei are the four good directions; Huo Hai, Liu Sha, Wu Gui and Jue Ming are the four bad ones. What each means is on the eight stars page.
Eight Mansions vs. Flying Stars
Eight Mansions pairs a person with directions, and that pairing never changes. Xuan Kong Flying Stars pairs a building with time, and it changes every year and every twenty-year period; see the 2027 Flying Stars chart and the Nine Periods. They are separate schools and often disagree.
Three common misconceptions
The Kua year changes at Chinese New Year.
The Eight Mansions Kua changes at the Start of Spring (around February 4), just like a BaZi chart. If you were born in January or early February, check whether it was before or after that day.
A couple with different Kua can't share a bedroom.
Family members usually have different Kua. Traditionally the house is read by the main breadwinner, and everyone else adjusts their own bed and desk.
A house full of bad directions needs a big renovation.
Eight Mansions itself puts toilets and storage in the bad directions to "press them down". Modern layouts are hard to change; adjusting the bed and desk is enough, and light, air and safety matter more.
All eight Kua, one by one
A straight word: Feng Shui is folk tradition, and light and air come first
Eight Mansions is one school of traditional Feng Shui (others include Flying Stars and San He). It pairs a person with directions, and the old books do not all agree with each other. Use it as one input when you arrange a space, but what makes a home good to live in is daylight, fresh air, sensible circulation and safety. There is no need to renovate because a direction is labeled "bad", and no need to buy remedies or charms. Everything on this site is for reference and entertainment.
Beyond directions, read your BaZi chart
Eight Mansions reads people and directions; BaZi reads a person's Five Elements and Ten Gods. Enter your birth date for a free Four Pillars chart.
Eight Mansions Kua FAQ
How do I know if I'm East group or West group?
Kan, Li, Zhen and Xun are East group; Qian, Kun, Gen and Dui are West group. The East group's good directions are north, south, east and southeast; the West group's are northwest, southwest, northeast and west.
How is the Kua number calculated?
Take your birth year (changing at the Start of Spring) mod 9 as r. Men: 11 − r; women: r + 4; reduce to 1–9. 1 Kan, 2 Kun, 3 Zhen, 4 Xun, 6 Qian, 7 Dui, 8 Gen, 9 Li; a 5 becomes Kun for men and Gen for women.
Why do men and women get different Kua?
Eight Mansions has always used different formulas for the two (men count backward, women forward), so a man and a woman born in the same year usually differ. It is simply the rule of the old method.
What if one partner is East group and the other West group?
Traditionally the house is read by the main breadwinner, and the other partner points the head of the bed toward one of their own good directions.