- Each line marks where a planet sat exactly on one of your four chart angles the moment you were born.
- Rising and setting lines curve. Midheaven and IC lines run straight north to south.
- I treat about 2° of longitude either side as on the line, and 2–5° as within its influence.
- The map shortlists places. Your relocated chart tells you what living there is actually like.
So you've pulled up your astrocartography map and it looks like someone spilled spaghetti over the globe. Forty-odd coloured lines, a lot of abbreviations, and no idea which ones matter. Let's fix that. By the end of this, you'll know what every line means, how close you need to be to feel it, and what the map can't tell you on its own.
Your map is your birth chart, stretched over the globe
Astrocartography (officially Astro*Carto*Graphy) was developed by the American astrologer Jim Lewis in the 1970s. The idea is simple. At the moment you were born, every planet was rising, setting, overhead or underneath somewhere on Earth. Your map draws a line through every place where that was exactly true.
So each line is one planet sitting on one of the four angles of your chart. With ten planets (counting the Sun and Moon) and four angles, that's 40 lines. Some maps add extras like Chiron or the lunar nodes, which is why yours might look busier.
Nothing about you changes when you move. Your planets stay in the same signs, making the same aspects to each other. What changes is which planets sit on your angles, and those are the ones you'll feel the most.
The four main astrocartography lines
The lines come in pairs. A planet on your Descendant is also opposite your Ascendant, and a planet on your IC is also opposite your Midheaven. So a Saturn IC line isn't just about home. It's also Saturn pulling against everything your Midheaven stands for, like career and visibility.
Rising and setting lines curve because of how the horizon tilts at different latitudes. Midheaven and IC lines are straight because they follow the meridian, the line running from north to south directly above you.
“Your chart follows you, but the way it expresses itself differs by location.”
How close do you need to be to feel a line?
Astrologers disagree on this, and the sources use different distances. Here's the rule I work by:
- Within about 2° of longitude: you're on the line. Expect to feel that planet strongly.
- 2–5° away: you're within its influence. Noticeable, but milder.
- Further than that: I'll tell you honestly that the line probably isn't doing much for you there.
One catch most people miss. A degree of longitude isn't a fixed distance. It's about 69 miles (111 km) at the equator but only about 44 miles (71 km) at 50° north, around London or Frankfurt. So “2° from the line” covers a much narrower strip of land in Europe than it does in Singapore.
And closer isn't automatically better. Sitting exactly on a line is the most intense version of that planet, which can be a lot to live with every day.
Where lines cross: parans
Sometimes two lines cross on your map. These crossings are called parans, short for paranatellonta, meaning “rising side by side”. It means two planets are angular at the same time.
Here's the bit people miss. A paran doesn't just affect the exact crossing point. Its effect runs around the whole world along that line of latitude. So a crossing over the Atlantic can still matter for a city at the same latitude in Asia.
A simple way to think about it: a line describes what a place is like for you. A crossing describes what that place asks you to do.
What your map can't tell you
The map is brilliant for shortlisting cities. But it leaves out a lot:
- The condition of the planet. A Jupiter in a sign where it struggles still struggles on its line.
- What the planet brings with it. Every aspect that planet makes in your birth chart comes along too.
- Softer contacts. Maps only draw planets exactly on an angle. Squares, trines and sextiles to your angles don't show up at all.
- Your houses. Which part of your life each planet lands in, which is where a lot of the detail is.
That's why someone can be hundreds of kilometres from every line on their map and still have a very eventful time in a city. I wrote about how this catches people out in why moving to a Jupiter or Venus line can mess you up.
Your relocated chart will activate your natal promise in different houses
A relocated chart is your birth chart recalculated for a new city, using the same birth moment. Your houses and angles shift. Your planets' signs and aspects stay the same. It's the full picture behind every line on your map.
When I read a place for a client, I look at it in this order:
- Planets on your new angles. These matter most.
- The planets that rule your houses, and whether they're hitting those angles.
- Where your Ascendant and Midheaven rulers land.
- Which houses your planets fall into in the new city.
- The signs on your new angles. These add flavour, but they're never the headline.
And don't forget real-world practicalities like your income, visa restrictions, family obligations, climate preferences & cultural assimilation like language etc. Your relocated charts won't show all that.
See your lines in minutes
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Get your 3 free readings →Questions people ask
What do the lines on an astrocartography map mean?
Each line marks every place where one of your planets was exactly rising (AC), setting (DC), overhead (MC) or underfoot (IC) at the moment you were born. Living near a line makes that planet more noticeable in your life.
Why are some lines curved and others straight?
Midheaven and IC lines follow the north–south meridian, so they're straight. Rising and setting lines follow the horizon, which tilts differently at each latitude, so they curve.
How close do I need to be to a line?
I treat within about 2° of longitude as on the line, and 2–5° as within its influence. Because a degree of longitude gets shorter as you move away from the equator, the distance in kilometres shrinks the further north or south you go.
Who invented astrocartography?
The American astrologer Jim Lewis developed Astro*Carto*Graphy in the 1970s. He also created a timing method for it called Cyclo*Carto*Graphy.
Is astrocartography the same as a relocated chart?
No. The map shows where each planet is strongest around the world. A relocated chart recalculates your whole birth chart for one city, so it shows what living there is actually like, including aspects and houses the map leaves out.
Further reading: Jim Lewis & Ariel Guttman, The Astro*Carto*Graphy Book of Maps (1989); Erin Sullivan, Where in the World? (1999); Martin Davis, Astrolocality Astrology (1999).
I'm Natalia, a locational astrologer
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